Palou Wins Thermal, TV Broadcast Knocked Off Air
Palou Wins Thermal, TV Broadcast Knocked Off Air By Power Outage
THERMAL, Calif. — Alex Palou took the checkered flag for the second time this season overtaking pole-sitter Pato O’Ward in a late race duel to the finish.
With ten laps left in the race, Palou was able to frantically close a massive gap to O’Ward, overtake, and then pull away from O’Ward.
“What an amazing weekend. We had a really fast car since practice and we executed very well,” Palou said. “We knew it was aggressive to start with the used reds, but we did it. Back-to-back wins. It’s awesome!
O’Ward got away cleanly when the green flag dropped in the desert of California. The battle was directly behind him as his Arrow McLaren teammate, Christian Lundgaard, held off a charge by Palou to try and overtake for second on the first lap. Lundgaard prevailed and helped Palou in third for a majority of the race.
But, it certainly was not easy, especially given the enigmatic tire strategies that would play out. The softer and much faster red tires had not held up for the long run in practice as well as the harder black tires. The field was split on which tire they started with. Lundgaard and O’Ward went in opposite directions once the first round of pit stops came and went.
For O’Ward it did not matter which tire he was on, at least not for the first 49 laps. He ticked lap after lap as swiftly and surely as he could. O’Ward led by as many as 12 seconds at one point. With the final round of pit stops looming on Lap 50, O’Ward was unbothered due to Lundgaard holding up Palou due to a perfectly executed pit strategy by the Arrow McLaren pit crew.
Palou tried undercutting O’Ward to try and play for the lead, but instead, Lundgaard undercut Palou once again keeping him in third.
However, Palou and Lundgaard battled hard in the subsequent laps. There were not one, not two, not three, but four cross-over passes between them before Palou would prevail for second place.
While this unfolded, O’Ward opened up a 7.6 second gap on Palou. But, O’Ward ran into lap traffic and the massive gap vanished in a matter of two laps. Both drivers now even keel, Palou took a chance with ten laps left in the race and dive-bombed O’Ward for the lead.
Palou pulled away and navigated lap traffic with ease and took a stunning victory.
“I have a great team. They make it look easy, They do all the work. I just try to make it happen,” Palou modestly said.
O’Ward held on for second and Lundgaard was third to round out the podium.
“We took a gamble and it didn’t work out for us,” O’Ward said. “The blacks took a turn tat the end of the race and we had no chance after that. We’ve fought for the championship every single year, that’s where I expect to be. I’m happy with the points day though. It’s a long season ahead.”
Though Palou is the talk of the paddock having won the race, the talk of the series is what the national TV audience did not see. Right around Lap 33, those watching the race both domestically in the United States and internationally saw their TV screens pause, and then go to commercial.
The FOX broadcast feed had gone out due to what was reported by the network as a “total power loss” to the compound. The IndyCar Radio broadcast was also impacted by the outage and the Thermal Club media center also saw its screens for timing and scoring go dark.
For roughly 15 excruciating minutes, FOX put the NASCAR race at Homestead Miami in its place while crews got the TV feed at Thermal back up and running.
Once that happened, watchers were treated to the thrilling battle that happened between O’Ward and Palou.
The weekend was more of a nightmare for Team Penske. Even though Will Power made up 15 spots to sixth after starting 21st, Scott Mclaughlin had hybrid issues and retired from the race with five laps left. Josef Newgarden also had a bad day finishing the full distance at 13th.
Alex Palou consolidated his championship lead with the win and his teammate, Scott Dixon, who finished 11th came away second in the championship standings.
The series will stay out west as they head to the beautiful sunny streets of Long Beach to begin the month of April.