Alex Palou picked up his second win in a row and his third of the 2023 season at Road America in the Sonsio Grand Prix.
The 2021 NTT IndyCar Series champion pitted one lap later than pole-sitter Colton Herta and made the move for the lead going to Turn 1 on Lap 49. Herta led 33 of the race’s 55 laps but faded back to fifth place as the race drew toward its conclusion.
Josef Newgarden finished second, 4.561s behind Palou. Pato O’Ward finished third, barely ahead of Scott Dixon who started back in 23rd place.
The race began with a first lap collision as Kyle Kirkwood nudged the back of Pato O’Ward’s car as the field approached Turn 1. Kirkwood spun both as a result of the contact and after accelerating on the bumpy curbs outside Turn 1.
The safety team restarted Kirkwood, but not in time for the race to remain under green flag conditions as race control called for a full course yellow.
The field spent two laps under yellow before green flag racing resumed. After the race resumed, race control assessed a drop-back penalty to Kirkwood for avoidable contact, ordering the Floridian to get behind Benjamin Pedersen.
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After the race resumed, there were a couple of off track excursions from Agustin Canapino and Felix Rosenqvist, the latter happening after contact with Rinus VeeKay. However, the race’s second full course yellow came out after Romain Grosjean spun the #28 Andretti Autosport Honda in Turn 3 and stalled the car.
As the field took the green flag for the second caution of the race, Jack Harvey lightly hit the rear of Helio Castroneves’s car while approaching Turn 14. Harvey’s car went off-line and the #30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda had no grip, sliding off into the gravel trap and lightly into the tire barrier. The safety team restarted Harvey’s car after the full course yellow came out.
After some light contact and dicey battles, the race’s next full course yellow came out on Lap 26 after David Malukas went off track at Turn 8 and his car stopped running. Malukas stepped out of his car, his engine no longer running and he was the race’s first retirement.
Marcus Armstrong led the field back to the green flag with Will Power in second, the pair of them using an off-sequence pit strategy to move to the front while the rest of the field stopped under the yellow.
Armstrong and Power led the rest of the field on the Lap 28 restart but Armstrong pitted on Lap 31 with Power doing the same two laps later.
Herta resumed in the race lead until making his final pit stop on Lap 40, giving the lead to Alex Palou. Palou and the rest of the top 10 pitted next time by, giving the lead back to Power who pitted at the end of Lap 46.
That cycled Herta to a lead that would briefly be his before Palou made his move for the win with seven laps to go.
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