Monaco, May 24 – MIM driver Alex Palou will start his second Indianapolis 500 next Sunday from second row on the grid, despite a huge crash that had caused extensive damage to his Honda powered Dallara car in the previous Top 9 session. The 24-year-old Spaniard from Chip Ganassi Racing managed sixth best in Sunday’s qualifying on the legendary 2-5 miles oval with an impressive average speed of 230.616 mph (over 371 Kph) on the four-lap run. Palou had shown a strong pace in all the practice session so far and, same as last year, he had entered the group of the nine contenders to pole position by scoring the seventh best average speed. As he tried another round to further improve, though, his car slid across the track and hit the wall. He came unscathed out of the accident and his team did a great job of repairing the car for the qualifying session, in which the top 9 drivers start in reverse order (and thus the last one has better chances to take advantage from improved track conditions). In the end, Palou managed to gain one position for the grid “and this bodes super-well for the race!”, he said.