Detroit, MI – Alex Palou admitted to making a mistake, falling to fourth in the early laps after starting on the pole, but his team’s strategy returned him to the front where he held off a late-race challenge from Kyle Kirkwood to win the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. Graham Rahal, Pato O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard rounded out the top-five.
“It feels like (winning for) the first time, honestly,” explained Palou, about his second win on the downtown Detroit temporary street course. “It was a tough one, a very tough one. The team did an incredible job once again with the pit stops and strategy. The Honda, Honda was incredible, but it was tough to get temperature (in the tires) on the restarts. I couldn’t be at the level of Kyle Kirkwood and Will Power who were able to get their tire temps better than me.
“Track position was the key,” continued Palou, who led 71 of 100 laps and now has 23 career wins, including three out of four victories on street courses this season. ”In the first stint, I started struggling. Then I put myself in a bad spot with Christian Lundgaard and Scott McLaughlin (was passed). But to be in a position to get saved by the yellow really helped (pitted on Lap 34 and re-took the lead under the second caution on Laps 39-43). It’s an incredible run and start to the year. Another win feels incredible. I can’t wait for the next one.”
Driving for Andretti Global, Kirkwood started sixth but worked his way up to second after his second and final pit stop. Although he managed to close the gap to the rear of Palou’s car a few times, inconvenient cautions meant he couldn’t quite make the pass. Kirkwood finished 3.06 seconds behind Palou.
“I am happy with second place,” stated Kirkwood. “You can’t be very upset with starting sixth and finishing second. We did all the right things, had great pit stops, and strategy. We gambled on tires, being the only guy on reds at the end. It nearly paid off but we had two untimely yellows. I wish we had another opportunity or two to be able to try and pass Palou. We almost had him covered. I was ready to make a dive on him but had burned up my overtake. I don’t know what we could have done better. No stones were left unturned.
“They’re fast,” added Kirkwood, about the Chip Ganassi team and the success of the No. 10 car. “They’re a good team, and Palou is a phenomenal driver. It’s kind of expected. They’ve struggled at street courses in recent years, and they don’t now. They’re clearly one of the best. It just makes us work harder and want to do better in all aspects because they’re doing everything right. They have for many years now. It’s a little disappointing to see that they have pace on street courses now because that used to be our one thing that we’re (Andretti Global) better than everyone. There’s a lot of good races on our schedule yet that I think we can catch up.”
Rahal also benefitted from great pit strategy. He started 12th on the primary, harder black tires and managed to move up to fourth before pitting on Lap 37. Two laps later, he was hit from behind and spun in the Turn 3 hairpin by Kyffin Simpson to bring out the second caution. Since the incident dropped him to 23rd, his team had him pit for the red, alternate tires under that caution and then pit again under the same caution for a second set of red alternates, having met the two-lap minimum requirement.
“We had a lot of pace when we needed it,” revealed Rahal, earning his third podium in five races. “We had to go a long way and save a lot of fuel, but we also needed to get a yellow. We got lucky because we got it. The fuel mileage was really key for us. We knew we’d pit on the early side of the window, but we still needed a yellow.
“I didn’t have overtake at all for any of the last restarts,” added Rahal. “I knew with Pato (O’Ward) behind me that I was going to have to give it everything I possibly could. I had a great run on Kyle (Kirkwood), but because I had no overtake, he just disappeared off into the distance.
“This place exaggerates the margin for error from the standpoint that it makes all the scenarios worse,” explained Rahal. “It’s so easy to lock up and hit the wall here, even if you’re going easier under yellow flag conditions. It’s slipperier than hell. You can lock a front and miss a corner. Anything can happen. This track, because of how narrow it is (35 to 60 feet wide), it breeds cautions. You want to maximize the brake zone, but if you go two feet too far, all the tires lock. The cars are too strong and very durable. You can hit things quite hard, and they don’t really break that much. Here, you just have to be a bulldog. Guys that keep doing it have a lot of experience. It hasn’t worked out for them. So, I’m not really sure why they keep making the moves of desperation that they do.
“When you see two guys battling like (Marcus) Ericsson and I were, there’s no reason for the third man in to be the guy that causes the problem,” continued Rahal, about being hit from behind by Simpson. “I treat everybody with respect on track, and I didn’t hit a single person today. Every pass I made was clean. Every battle I was in, clean. I expect the same in return. Those restarts are wild in the car, just hanging on to zero grip. You want to push every brake zone but you’re just waiting to lock up and miss a corner. It’s a combination of all those things that leads to the aggression that you see.”
After spending two weeks on the very smooth and longest oval at Indianapolis, drivers and teams had to adapt to the bumpiest and shortest street circuit on the INDYCAR schedule. On the 1.645-mile, nine-turn track, drivers were required to run two sets of the red alternate tires and one set of primary black tires, each for a minimum of two laps. The race could be accomplished on two pit stops but Rahal’s team had him pit twice for the red tires so that he could run his last stint on blacks (Lap 63 of 100). He pitted a few laps earlier than the third caution on Lap 66, allowing him to move up as other drivers pitted for their second stop.
In spite of the treacherous conditions, with no grip on the mostly concrete circuit, the 100-lap race had an average speed of 82.8 mph. There were seven lead changes among six drivers. But there were 173 on-track passes, setting a new record, many involving some wheel-banging. Maybe it was the full moon but the streets of Detroit always produce a chaotic and exciting race. There were five cautions for a total of 23 laps.
The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix competed for the fourth time on the downtown streets of Detroit, which brings over US $100 M to the city in hotel and restaurant revenue, including $10 M going to charity. Over half the circuit was free to fans. To avoid families leaving town for vacations as school lets out for the summer, the Detroit race immediately follows the Indianapolis 500.
It was an intense month of May, where many had only one day off, the day before the 500, resulting in crews devoid of sleep and energy, who would have preferred a weekend off instead of preparing their street course cars.
Honda drivers filled all three podium positions in Chevrolet’s headquarters backyard, following the closest finish in history (0.0233 seconds) by Honda over Chevy at the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500. It’s the fourth Detroit race won by a Honda driver since the move from the Belle Isle course. The downtown race is expected to continue in 2027 and 2028 without interruption from the tearing down of the two Renaissance Center columns closest to the Detroit River to create a park.
Palou continues his lead in the title fight with 327 points, followed by Kirkwood, 265, David Malukas, 248, Lundgaard, 226, and O’Ward, 220. Drivers now head to St. Louis to compete on the World Wide Technology (Gateway) short oval this Saturday, June 6 before a much needed weekend break occurs.