This year’s win by Alex Palou at Barber Motorsports Park, in Birmingham, AL, wasn’t as easy as last year. The defending INDYCAR champion led from the pole but had to fight through heavy traffic to regain the lead in the second half of the race. Christian Lundgaard finished 13.2 seconds behind Palou, making a late-race pass of Graham Rahal for second, relegating the American to third, followed by David Malukas and Kyle Kirkwood in fifth.
“It was a very tough race,” said Palou, who led 79 laps to win his second race of the season. “We struggled quite a lot. I ran a used set of primaries in the third stint. We thought it was going to be a red tire race. Lundgaard was getting very close as was Rahal. They had pace. I’m so glad it worked out for us.”
Teams strategized that the preferred tire would be the red, softer alternate tire, requiring three pit stops for the 90-lap distance, as was the case last year. Firestone brought tires that had the same construction as the previous year but utilized different compounds, expecting the same degradation.
But with cooler temperatures for the race and after the 30-minute Warm-up on Sunday morning, teams seemed confused whether the softer red or harder black primary tires were the optimum choice. And, by then, drivers had used up most of their five sets of black, primary tires in practice and qualifying. They may have also sacrificed a set of red tires to advance in knock-out qualifying. Most tried to save two or three red sets of the five allocated for the race.
“Today it was fifty-fifty,” explained Palou, about the right tire choice; he had to change strategy to ‘plan B’ after the Warm-up, using a second set of primary tires. “If I had two sets of new alternates, I would have been fine. We went as long as possible on new reds to make the third stint on used blacks short. I had primary (black) tires from practice that had ten laps on them already. But it felt like they had 55 laps on them.”
Palou didn’t have it easy; when he came in for his third and final pit stop on Lap 65, so did several other cars. The Spaniard dropped from the lead to sixth. And, while Lundgaard was increasing his gap in clean air, Palou found himself stuck behind several slower cars.
“I had to go for it leaving the pit lane and I got into the grass,” added Palou, about fighting with Mick Schumacher at the exit. “I didn’t know if two cars could fit there (at pit out) and how aggressive he was going to be. You can lose the race in those moments because you can lose five to six seconds. Traffic was tough. Everyone was fighting like it was the last lap of the Indy 500. I was crying in the car, ‘Please guys, just let me by. I just need to fight with Lundgaard.’”
Lundgaard certainly had the pace to challenge Palou. The Dane was leading when he pitted on Lap 69, but a 17.8-second pit stop (trouble with the right-rear tire), nine seconds too long, resulted in him dropping back to third.
“We had a race-winning car today,” stated a disappointed Lundgaard, who led 10 laps and earned his 11th career podium. “It is frustration because the last few races we’ve produced such great race cars on Sunday. We’ve been lacking on Saturday. Obviously, you win races on Sunday, so that’s when you need to have a good car. Even with the pace and how the race panned out today, we had the car to win the race. I’m not really sure what happened in the pit stop. I came out behind Graham (Rahal) on the last stint and just wanted to really get that second place for the team.
“It’s fair to be frustrated,” continued Lundgaard, in his second season driving for Arrow McLaren. “It’s a tough position to be in because it’s like one of those unlucky yellows that hurts your entire race progress. We had done so good up until then. We finished P2, so we shouldn’t be that frustrated. But when you are up against a car that’s been the most competitive and best car in INDYCAR for the past many years (the No. 10 car of Palou), to have a chance to beat him fair and square, that hurts. It’s the position that we’ve tried to be in the past three years. We got there today. There’s a lot to learn from it.”
Finishing in third, Rahal earned his first podium since August 2023, which came on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
“It’s a good reward for the guys and gals,” stated Rahal, who finished second in 2015 and 2016 at Barber. “Everyone has worked so hard to get back here. All weekend the car was in really good shape. Competitive and comfortable. Stable but losing the rear in the race on tire degradation. It’s been our Archilles heel. We’ll carry the momentum and get ready for Long Beach. Now our job is to go analyze and figure out what changes we made that was good for our car.
“Christian’s strength was my weakness,” revealed Rahal, who did his best to hold off a determined Lundgaard, who finally passed Rahal in the Turn 5 hairpin on Lap 88. “I was dying in Turns 2 and 3 and that was where he was very strong. We had more laps on our tires than he did. On my car, the reds and blacks didn’t make a difference. I struggled with the rears on both. I had high left-front tire temperature but the tire held up. The tire that Firestone brought was faster (than last year). The cornering speeds are so high, it’s a lot like an oval so you don’t want to pick up the marbles. It was as physical as hell today. Extremely tough.”
The NTT INDYCAR drivers were thrilled to compete at their first permanent road course of the season, the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix, for their 16th time. The flowing, very technical, and high commitment, 17-turn, 2.38-mile circuit offers an 80-foot elevation change that makes it feel like a roller coaster.
And, although the race was caution-free for the second year in a row, there were some big shunts earlier in the weekend. Scott McLaughin, in the Saturday morning practice, put his right side tires a few inches off the pavement and onto the grass as he was entering Turn 1 at 150 mph. His car spun 180 degrees and he flew backwards, slipping between the wall barrier and catch fence, only to be stopped by the horizontal cables.
Escaping injury, McLaughlin, who won at Barber in 2023 and 2024, was pretty sore. His Penske team switched to the back-up car. And Will Power, now driving for Andretti Global, lost his rear brakes heading into the Turn 5 hairpin in qualifying, heading nose first into the tire barrier.
Sadly, George Barber, a realtor developer, businessman, and philanthropist, passed away at 85 in mid-February. His track was originally designed for motorcycles but turned out to produce great open-wheel racing since 2010. It features two large hillsides where families can sit on the grass and watch the action. There are many interesting structures around the track, including the Turn 5 hairpin’s huge spider, the Lady in the Lake, and the mannequin hanging from the spectacular Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum’s bridge, Georgina, who fell on the track and was run over during the 2024 race.
“George Barber’s tremendous passion for motorsports reached its full expression through Barber Motorsports Park and it’s challenging road course in beautiful, park-like surroundings,” said Doug Boles, President of INDYCAR. “His commitment to bringing INDYCAR SERIES racing to the Southeast was exemplary, as races every year at Barber Motorsports Park are among the highlights of the early-season schedule for drivers, teams and fans.”
Drivers now head off to the third street course of the season at the Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 19. Kyle Kirkwood leads the championship with a narrow two-point margin over Palou, 156 to 154, followed by Lundgaard with 121, Malukas 116, and Josef Newgarden with 113 points.