“Street Fight.”
And welcome back to another edition of Dre’s Race Review, in this edition we’ll be hitting up the morning after the night before for IndyCar, the Detroit Grand Prix and the downer after what was one of the greatest Indy 500’s of all-time. And in this race, we got the Racing Gods giveth and taketh away for Alex Palou in what ultimately turned out to be… extremely Detroit. Let’s get into it.
Trippin’ Over Each Other
David Malukas has had a hard week. He lost the closest Indy 500 finish of all-time, and took it with exceptional good grace. He rolls up in Detroit looking for make up for it, and then smashes his car into the wall up the hill during Round 1 of qualifying and had to start 25th. Mick Schumacher, the man who people have clearly moved out of the honeymoon period with, did the same in his Round 1 heat too. Rough.
Speaking of rough, this qualifying format man. The Fast 6 ended up as Scott McLaughlin, Will Power, Kyle Kirkwood, Alex Palou, Christian Lundgaard and Scott Dixon, and they all picked in their respective grid slots for the final round. I’ve said before that I think giving the field an extra fresh set of Firestone Reds would fix the problem, but then I’d fear we’d just get the reverse effect. Long story short, given how long it was taking for the tyres to get up to speed in Detroit, a track where it’s hard to get the heat in due to low speed 90 degree corners and decent straights, everyone was going to take a used set of softs and go as early as they can to retain as much heat as possible.
And yet despite that, Alex Palou ends up on pole despite going fourth. If you can’t see me, I’m throwing my papers up in the air like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.
The early going of the race looked like a familiar tale – Palou inching out an early lead from pole, with Scott McLaughlin struggling to keep up. As it was a street track, it meant two mandatory stints on the red tyre, which Palou, McLaughlin, Power and Dixon all elected to start on. An early caution for Christian Rasmussen hitting the outside wall and breaking the toe-link on his cars extended their stint, but by Lap 30, the field had bunched up, with a hard-charging Will Power taking the lead from Palou, with everyone struggling on their used softs.
I was screaming at the TV for Palou to take the undercut, and he and Kyle Kirkwood in P6 did just that, and leapfrogged the rest of the leading pack. I’m no strategic genius, but this was the really obvious call and I don’t know on earth Tim Cindric in the #3 garage and Ron Ruzewski in Power’s garage both missed what was an incredibly easy decision.
It left us with another Palou and Kirkwood street fight, with Kirkwood on the black tyres for the middle stint, and Palou on the reds again, his call, as he didn’t want to finish on that race tyre. Again, not to play strategist, but I noticed at around the 60-lap mark, there was a nice pocket of clean air forming between Pato O’Ward and Louis Foster on track that Palou could pit into, and get his final stop out of the way under green. I’ve seen it happen many a time prior with Wanser, if he’s in a window, go early so you don’t get hosed for when the caution lands. Palou was always coming in first given his softer rubber. Palou comes in on Lap 63… and three laps later, Santino Ferrucci spins out Rinus Veekay for the third caution of the race, and the leading group gets hosed. Those calling it lucky aren’t entirely wrong, especially with this being the first race where IndyCar are no longer going to consider pit strategy before throwing the yellow, but taking your stop to take the freak caution out of the equation has been a common strategy for the #10 crew, in fact he did it earlier this season in Barber.
Then Detroit better resembled classic Detroit. Not long after the restart, we get another sad caution. Mick Schumacher, who’s been having a largely miserable debut season in the series, had shuffled into second place due to the caution stops, with David Malukas now third, looking to take advantage and potentially win the race. Mick goes into the wall on Lap 2 of the restart, banging wheels with Malukas, the former doesn’t make the corner down the hill and both run wide and off into the escape road. Schumacher’s radio had failed so he was caught cold on the restart, Malukas’ day is pretty much done as the caution drops.
It gets Kirkwood into second place and now with a golden chance to win, as he has the softer tyres, which should be quicker at the top of a stin- Oh wait, another caution. Ferrucci’s car dies on track, and Alex Rossi tries a dummy move into Turn 3 and ploughs Romain Grosjean off the road. But all those laps under caution take the best of Kirkwood’s tyres away, and by the time we get to the final 12 laps of green, Palou is able to keep his tyres in optimal range better, and he drives away from Kirkwood for the win. Because yes, only in IndyCar is a man leading 71 out of 100 laps in a winning effort deemed lucky. Palou drove brilliantly, but it was an excellent effort from his pitwall that opened up the opportunities as they landed.
It’s an under-appreciated element of Palou’s whopping success. He’s won half of the races since the start of last season and we don’t have another multiple race winner in the series so far in 2026. This was his 23rd series victory, meaning he now enters the Top 20 of all-time. This year alone he’s passed Ryan Hunter-Reay, Sam Hornish Jr, Tony Bettenhausen and Emerson Fittipaldi. Bobby Rahal’s next with 24. Right now, I think he’s the best racing driver on the planet, and speedrunning a GOAT% run. We’re nearly half way through his run to a fifth title in six years and he has a 62 point lead. Malukas in third place needs a big Gateway, arguably his best track.
The Lightning Round
I’m astonished that Scott McLaughlin drove Will Power into a wall coming out of three, and wasn’t penalised for it. Startling. Same happened with Romain Grosjean doing the same to Nolan Siegel. Baffling that awful driving standards are gotten away with, again. No surprise, it led to Will Power screaming “Fox One” on a hot camera after he had to retire. That man is 18th in points right now.
It also goes to show you, given Bryan Herta’s rant in saying that they were “throwing the caution the moment a hot dog wrapper landed on the track”, that we’re a fickle bunch that sometimes doesn’t know what it wants. We used to bitch the cautions came out too late. Now they’re apparently too early. I’ll be real with you, given Detroit’s a track littered with blind corners and narrow lanes, I was fine with it. To borrow a line from one of my favourite commentators, the Bipolar Rock n’ Rolla Mauro Ranallo – I’d much rather see a fight stopped early, than late.
Scott Dixon had to retire from a potential Top 5 because of the hybrid again. It seems to be more and more obvious we only have these hybrids because Honda held the series feet to the open fire, and again I ask – What good has it done for IndyCar in terms of racing quality?
A very strange post-race interview from Josef Newgarden. He ended up tenth despite having to be in a racing boot from his crash at the 500 a week earlier. He admitted that if Penske wanted to win, they were better off putting Felipe Nasr in the car. Now for those unaware, Nasr isn’t just the cup of coffee he spent in F1 – He’s now become one of the world’s elite Sportscar drivers and tested an IndyCar right before the world stopped turning in 2020. Now I know Josef’s a big fan of Felipe’s; they were teammates at Porsche when Josef ran Daytona, but that just isn’t true is it? It seems Josef was essentially saying he shouldn’t have raced, but did anyway. What is going on at Penske? Is this just them not taking a non-500 race seriously?
Graham Rahal’s third podium of the season in third place. There’s no questioning it now, he’s been one of the drivers of the year so far, doing superb work for his team, beyond the usual Indy Road Course bump. Good to see another breakthrough driver from Louis Foster in seventh as well, second time he’s finished there this season. Mick… It’s not going well, is it?
Christian Rasmussen, I beg of you, do something useful that’s not an oval! Seriously, with all three cars crashing or failing at the 500, followed by Rossi the battering ram and Rasmussen slamming the wall, it’s been a very expensive week for Ed Carpenter.
Dre’s Race Rating: 6/10 (Decent) – Not bad. Detroit is a shit layout, you’ll never convince me otherwise, but it rewards you for not making a complete mess of it. The usual Tom Gaymore “Cautions breeeeed cautions” Detroit attitude kicked in in the final 40 laps, but for once, I’m glad the right man won, in mildly chaotic circumstances. See you in Gateway.