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Alex Palou’s recent run of domination in the NTT IndyCar Series continued with a dominating win in Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
The No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda started fourth and picked up the lead of the race following the first sequence of pit stops and never looked back as Scott Dixon finished second ahead of Will Power in third, Christian Lundgaard in fourth and Scott McLaughlin in fifth.
The race began at the alternate start line on the straight following The Keyhole but went yellow almost immediately. As the field went through Turn 6, Marcus Ericsson hit Felix Rosenqvist, causing the #8 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to go airborne over the front of Rosenqvist’s #6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
After the race resumed, Herta maintained the lead despite a few looks from Graham Rahal. Herta lost the lead following the first sequence of green flag pit stops when Palou set a rapid sequence of fast laps before his first pit stop while Rahal fell to seventh in the pit stop cycle.
All the while, Pato O’Ward was running in fourth place after an early pit stop to get off the red alternate Firestone compound tires to put on the black sidewall primary compound. O’Ward started 25th and was up to 14th before his first stop of the race on Lap 17.
Palou led much of the next stint of the race but had to contend with Benjamin Pedersen for several laps. The rookie running in 25th place was trying to maintain his position on the lead lap and remained ahead of Palou for several laps before the Spaniard finally cleared Pedersen after going side-by-side with the #55 A. J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet.
Despite closing the gap to within five seconds, Herta could not mount a sufficient challenge for the race lead and eliminated himself from race win contention when he sped coming to pit road for his final pit stop.
Herta had a brief moment of oversteer entering pit road on Lap 55 and did not hit the pit road speed limiter before the pit road speed limit zone began. Race control nailed Herta for speeding and the polesitter’s chances were over.
Rahal didn’t fare any better on his final pit stop as his left rear tire changer had trouble securing the wheel onto the No. 15 Honda. After a delay of several seconds to get the air jack back up, Rahal’s mechanic secured the wheel and Rahal left the pits mired in the bottom half of the top 10.
Palou led late from O’Ward, Dixon and Power, but O’Ward’s early stop meant he had to make an extra pit stop near the end of the race, dropping the 2022 Mid-Ohio polesitter to eighth place.
From then on it was clear sailing for Palou as he won handily over the rest of the field, extending his points lead from 74 to 110 over Dixon. Ericsson entered the race second in points but left the race fourth, 122 points out of the lead. Newgarden remains third in points, 116 behind Palou.
