Alex Palou Champions Honda To Top Finish At Road America INDYCAR Race

Published: Monday, June 10, 2024, 20:51 [IST]

Alex Palou secured a fourth-place finish at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES XPEL Grand Prix of Road America, leading the Honda field. Driving the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Palou started seventh and navigated through a chaotic first corner to finish fourth. This result helps Palou gain crucial points in the championship standings.

Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Global finished fifth, marking his second consecutive top-five finish. This performance moves Kirkwood into a tie for fifth in the points standings. His teammate, Colton Herta, finished sixth despite facing early setbacks, including a spin on lap one and another incident during the restart.

Position	Driver	Team
4th	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
5th	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Global Honda
6th	Colton Herta	Andretti Global Honda
9th	Marcus Ericsson	Andretti Global Honda
10th	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda

Manufacturers' Championship Standings (Unofficial)

Manufacturer	Points
Chevrolet	567 points
Honda	551 points

Drivers' Championship Standings (Unofficial)

Position	Driver	Team	Points
1st
-5
-11
-52
-57
-57

Quotes from Key Figures

"It was a good solid day for the #10 DHL Honda. We made up some positions, but it was just a shame we didn't have the ultimate car speed today. Overall, a good result, and we've gained some points in the championship as well," said Alex Palou.

"I'm not happy with sixth place with the car that we had and the pace that we had. We had a little bit of damage from the incidents and that did make it harder to get back up there. But, because of our strategy, we were able to go so much longer on fuel and get so much more clean air that it just kind of worked in our favour. It's disappointing for everybody on a weekend that I feel like we could have won. It's disappointing for our team, and for Honda, that we aren't at least on the podium," stated Colton Herta.

"A decent day. Of course, you always want to win, especially when you lead some laps here, but top five is always a good result, and that's what we got here today. The Honda had great fuel economy; we just couldn't make the tyres last to actually use all the fuel. But as I said, a decent day, and we're still fifth in the points, so we'll go on to Laguna Seca happy with the finish," commented Kyle Kirkwood.

"We had a great qualifying this weekend at Road America; 1-2-3-4 for Honda showed a lot of promise and we hoped to continue that all the way to the chequered flag. Unfortunately, racing is racing and we can't predict how these events will pan out. As always, thank you to our men and women at HRC for all their hard work and to all of our Honda teams for the effort they put in this weekend. We will certainly be pushing for more at Laguna Seca," said Kelvin Fu, Vice President of Honda Racing Corporation USA.

The Road Ahead

The NTT INDYCAR SERIES now takes a break before heading west to central California for the June 21-23 Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

# # #