IndyCar Barber Motorsports Park
Unstoppable Alex Palou leaves Barber with third IndyCar win of the season
A win in Alabama makes it three out of four this season for three-time IndyCar champion Palou. Will his fourth championship come in 2025?
Lalita Chemello
Edited: May 5, 2025, 1:20 AM
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Photo by: Penske Entertainment
Another caution-less IndyCar race makes it 339 green flag laps since the last caution at St. Pete, which didn't really pave the way for Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou (#10) third win of the season. But it certainly may have helped.
The three-time IndyCar championship winner again demonstrated his own masterclass of how to own the IndyCar field at the Children's of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park, finishing well over 15-seconds ahead of the rest of the field. At some point hearing from the team over the radio: "Everything looks good. Nice and smooth. Take a drink."
Palou set the pace from the moment the green flag waved for the start, running an almost unobtainable pace for the other cars in the field, winning directly from pole and making for his second-ever win at Barber, his first win claimed just four years ago with Chip Ganassi Racing.
"It was the perfect day. I would say a perfect weekend. First time we were rocking that number 10 HRC livery. I'm super proud of everybody that has been working on the 10 car and Chip Ganassi Racing and HRC as well. Yeah, honestly it's been just a perfect day. The car was amazing — super fast, and I just had a ton of fun. I was a bit lonely there, but I loved it. It was an amazing day.
"I mean, we've always been really good here. I love this place, every single lap here just feels amazing in an IndyCar. So yeah, it's gonna be extra special from now on."
The rest of the field, whether on primaries or alternates, was left to gamble tire strategies — would using the required primary set at the start of the race get the difficult tire out of the way and allow them to utilize alternates for better control and speed for the rest of the race? Or would using them in the final laps of the race give an advantage over tires that were hanging by a thread (not literally)?
Where tire strategy worked: the handful of drivers who started the race on the black primary tires seemed to benefit the most, with the top seven cars using their primaries either right at the start, or at their second stop. But Alexander Rossi (#20), Kyle Kirkwood (#27), and Christian Rasmussen (#21) bet on the primaries for the end which didn't quite work out strategy-wise, as Rossi explained.
"It's horrible," the Ed Carpenter Racing driver and Indy 500 winner told media post-race. "Like, we knew it was going to be bad at some point, but with where we started, we were just trying to get as much track position as we could on the alternate tire and build a big enough gap to the cars we were able to put them on. At the end, it was a lot of work to keep Nolan [Siegel] and Joseph [Newgarden] behind there, but, the team called a great race, and they were great in pit lane so I think that was the most we could do on the day."
Tire strategy will hopefully play a more interesting role going into Indianapolis next week for the Sonsio Grand Prix where cars will now be required to utilize two sets of alternate and two sets of primaries for the race. Qualifying for Indy's race on the roval kicking off the Month of May is Friday, May 9 at 4:30pm EDT, with race day on Sunday, again at 4:30pm EDT.
Photos from Barber Motorsports Park - Race
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
2025 Barber Motorsports Park - Sunday
IndyCar
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Main Information Additional Data Additional Data Driver Info
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Main Information Additional Data
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2
Cla Driver # Laps Time Interval Mph Pits Points Retirement 1 A. Palou Chip Ganassi Racing 10 90
1:46'33.1523
116.562 3 54 2 C. Lundgaard Arrow McLaren 7 90
+16.0035
1:46'49.1558
16.0035 116.271 3 40 3 S. McLaughlin Team Penske 3 90
+23.4453
1:46'56.5976
7.4418 116.136 3 36 4 R. van Kalmthout Dale Coyne Racing 18 90
+23.7783
1:46'56.9306
0.3330 116.130 3 32 5 W. Power Team Penske 12 90
+32.7718
1:47'05.9241
8.9935 115.968 3 30 6 P. O'Ward Arrow McLaren 5 90
+33.2559
1:47'06.4082
0.4841 115.959 3 28 7 C. Herta Andretti Global 26 90
+34.0216
1:47'07.1739
0.7657 115.945 3 26 8 A. Rossi Ed Carpenter Racing 20 90
+45.7556
1:47'18.9079
11.7340 115.734 3 24 9
N. Siegel Arrow McLaren
6 90
+46.2254
1:47'19.3777
0.4698 115.725 3 22 10 J. Newgarden Team Penske 2 90
+48.0484
1:47'21.2007
1.8230 115.693 3 20 11 K. Kirkwood Andretti Global 27 90
+57.9913
1:47'31.1436
9.9429 115.514 3 19 12 S. Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing 9 90
+58.6974
1:47'31.8497
0.7061 115.502 3 18 13 F. Rosenqvist Meyer Shank Racing 60 90
+59.3510
1:47'32.5033
0.6536 115.490 3 17 14 G. Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 15 90
+1'08.2589
1:47'41.4112
8.9079 115.331 3 16 15
C. Rasmussen Ed Carpenter Racing
21 90
+1'09.2260
1:47'42.3783
0.9671 115.314 3 15 16 D. Malukas A.J. Foyt Enterprises 4 90
+1'10.1133
1:47'43.2656
0.8873 115.298 3 14 17 M. Armstrong Meyer Shank Racing 66 89
+1 Lap
1:46'43.0711
1 Lap 115.089 3 14 18 S. Ferrucci A.J. Foyt Enterprises 14 89
+1 Lap
1:46'45.8597
2.7886 115.038 4 12 19 C. Daly Juncos Hollinger Racing 76 89
+1 Lap
1:46'47.8845
2.0248 115.002 3 11 20 M. Ericsson Andretti Global 28 89
+1 Lap
1:46'55.0074
7.1229 114.874 3 10 21 K. Simpson Chip Ganassi Racing 8 89
+1 Lap
1:46'55.2542
0.2468 114.870 3 9 22
R. Robb Sting Juncos Hollinger Racing
77 89
+1 Lap
1:46'56.0496
0.7954 114.856 3 8 23 C. Ilott Prema Racing 90 89
+1 Lap
1:46'58.5642
2.5146 114.811 3 7 24 D. DeFrancesco Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 30 89
+1 Lap
1:46'59.0789
0.5147 114.802 3 6 25 R. Shwartzman Prema Racing 83 89
+1 Lap
1:47'05.0348
5.9559 114.695 3 5 26
L. Foster Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
45 88
+2 Laps
1:46'53.4593
1 Lap 113.611 3 5 27
J. Abel Dale Coyne Racing
51 88
+2 Laps
1:47'39.2243
45.7650 112.806 4 5 View full results
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