MIM driver brings home a thirteenth place and is still well in the fight for the Indycar championship

The green color did not prove particularly lucky for Alex Palou in the Iowa double-header this weekend, After fighting hard to bring home sixth place in the Saturday 250-laps race 1, the reigning series champion struggled to find the pace in Sunday’s Hi-Vee Tribute to Farmers 300 on the Iowa super-short oval track (7/8 of a mile or 1.4 Km). Nevertheless, he is still very much in the fight for the championship title with five events to go, starting with the Indianapolis road course race already next weekend.

The race itself was quite uneventful for the Monaco Increase managed driver, who had qualified P12 in Saturday’s session and found himself moved up a slot by Colton Herta’s engine change penalty. At the start of the race, Palou paced himself to stay in the top 15 group, pitting for tuel and tires on lap 57 for the first time. His pace did seem to improve slowly but did not yield any significant progress in the race, which was marred by a dramatic accident on lap 236 as Josef Newgarden’s leading car suddenly snapped along the inner line and crashed against the barrier at turn 4. In the remaining laps, Palou got sandwiched between Colton Herta and Graham Rahal and finished one lap down to winner Pato O’Ward in P13, tallying up a total of 26 passes in the process.

“It was a tough day for the No. 10 Ridgeline Lubricants car”, said the 25-years old Spaniard just after the race. “Just a shame considering the good day we had yesterday. We were just missing some pace. We’ll sit down and check where we were missing, but we tried our best and will re-group for the Indianapolis Road Course.”