Alex Palou takes third IndyCar title, Colton Herta wins in Nashville

Alex Palou at the Milwaukee Mile. Image: Joe Skibinski

The title was all but decided when Team Penske’s Will Power pulled into the pits just minutes into the race to fix a belt issue. Power lost five laps in the process and in the end finished 24th for Team Penske.

Palou finished 11th in the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing entry, which was enough to seal the series win. It’s also the 16th drivers’ title for Chip Ganassi.

“We just had to keep going,” said Palou.

Featured Videos

“I have to thank everybody working on the #10 car, everybody at CGR back at the shop, all the cars, my teammates. Super proud.

“It’s been an amazing year and I’ve got the championship back home.”

The race was won by Andretti Global’s Colton Herta, who pulled off a bold pass on McLaren’s Pato O’Ward inside five laps to go.

It’s the 24-year-old’s first oval win.

“It was thanks to Sting Ray, he was there and we had a pick to play off of,” Herta explained.

“THe whole race I was getting all my passing done off of the corners, really able to drive middle to exit of the corner, get the power down really nicely.

“That’s just what that was. We were showing it off. Luckily we had just enough room between me and Sting Ray. There might have been a small nudge there but I had to used every bit of him to accelerate onto the straight.”

The win promotes Herta to second in the IndyCar Series points while Scott McLaughlin’s fifth place finish moved him to third in the standings.

“It’s amazing. I couldn’t ask for a better ending to the year. I’m so happy with all the work that everyone has done this year.

“These guys behind me have been rocks all year. Today we just showed strategy was great, pit stops were fantastic, we put everything together and it was a great race from us.”

The race was punctuated by a series of cautions, the first of which was brought out by Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist. He suffered a right front puncture on Lap 56.

Katherine Legge brought out the second yellow on Lap 90 when she crashed her Dale Coyne Racing entry at the final turn.

While it was all smiles for Herta, his Andretti Global teammate Marcus Ericsson crashed on Lap 135 in what was the third and final yellow.

Results: IndyCar Series, Music City Grand Prix

Pos	Num	Driver	Team	Laps	Diff	Gap
1	26	Colton Herta	Andretti Global w/Curb‑Agajanian	206
2	5	Pato O’Ward	Arrow McLaren	206	1.8106	1.8106
3	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	206	1.9611	0.1505
4	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Global	206		2.7564
5	3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	206	7.7837	3.0662
6	14	Santino Ferrucci	AJ Foyt Enterprises	206	9.2336	1.4499
7	11	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	206	14.387	5.1534
8	8	Linus Lundqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	206	14.6519	0.2649
9	66	David Malukas	Meyer Shank Racing	206	15.2726	0.6207
10	78	Conor Daly	Juncos Hollinger Racing	205	In Pit	15.5949
11	10	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	205	1 LAPS	10.6756
12	21	Rinus VeeKay	Ed Carpenter Racing	205	1 LAPS	2.5394
13	18	Jack Harvey	Dale Coyne Racing	205	1 LAPS	1.9434
14	20	Christian Rasmussen	Ed Carpenter Racing	205	1 LAPS	0.507
15	7	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	205	1 LAPS	3.2286
16	77	Romain Grosjean	Juncos Hollinger Racing	204	2 LAPS	13.5358
17	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	204	2 LAPS	2.3506
18	6	Nolan Siegel	Arrow McLaren	204	2 LAPS	1.4097
19	45	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	204	2 LAPS	2.0313
20	41	Sting Ray Robb	AJ Foyt Enterprises	204	2 LAPS	0.2182
21	30	Pietro Fittipaldi	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	204	2 LAPS	2.1471
22	4	Kyffin Simpson	Chip Ganassi Racing	202	In Pit	1 LAPS
23	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	202	4 LAPS	11.152
24	12	Will Power	Team Penske	198	8 LAPS	3 LAPS
25	28	Marcus Ericsson	Andretti Global	137	Contact	10 LAPS
26	51	Katherine Legge	Dale Coyne Racing	85	Contact	3.3871
27	60	Felix Rosenqvist	Meyer Shank	55	Contact	0.963