2026 IndyCar championship leader Alex Palou led 60 laps on Sunday as he won in Portland to extend his points lead to 110 over Kyle Kirkwood. It is his sixth victory of the campaign.
Starting P2 on Sunday and running blacks in the first stint, the four-time champion did not fight Marcus Ericsson hard as the Swede overtook him on reds early doors.
Once the #28 pitted, the CGR driver got to work. He closed a gap of just over 2s down to under a second when Rosenqvist pitted on lap 31. Staying out a lap longer, the Spaniard got the overcut.
From there, he was almost always full in control, aside from near the end of the third stint as he caught backmarkers, with Rosenqvist getting to within a second. However, he once again went a lap further and maintained his lead.
As the flag fell on the IndyCar race in Portland, Alex Palou won the race by 4s from the 2026 Indy 500 champion.
Palou surprised by red tyre pace in 2026 IndyCar Portland race
While the 29-year-old wanted to go on blacks for the second stint, Barry Wanser and Julian Robertson opted to put their driver on reds. The pace was scintillating as Palou pulled out a 7s gap to the #60 before he caught a bit of traffic.
Speaking to Pit Debrief and other media outlets post-race, the Spanish star revealed he wanted to save the new reds for later in case Rosenqvist or Power came at him. Ultimately, despite the Swede and Australian using them in stints 3 and 4 respectively, he had enough pace to win it relatively comfortably.
“Yeah, I would say the race in general was incredible for us.
“I think pretty much nobody expected those reds and soft tyres to be that fast and to be that good, especially so many laps. That’s why we went a bit let’s say in that moment as well, also because Barry and Julian said we’re going to hit some traffic. It was a time to try and open the gap. It worked incredible.
“But that was like, man, those tyres are the best. I wanted to have them more towards the end to avoid Felix or Power or whoever we were going to be fighting with.”
A very happy radio message from Wanser
On lap 41, radio was played out asking the four-time champion whether he could do another eight laps on softs for an ideal window. Palou’s response? “Yeah, easy”.
In fact, he went to the end of lap 55 before pitting again, doing a full 23 tours on that tyre and delivering extraordinary pace as he drove off into the distance.
“Yeah, I mean, there’s times that that doesn’t work. There’s times that he goes on the radio and says eight more laps. I’m like, ‘no way, That doesn’t happen.’
“In my mind, when I was driving, I thought that I had to do another 15. So when he said another eight, I was like, ‘oh, that’s good. We’re going to make it happen.’
“I started pushing a bit more and tried to get everything out of the tyre. Yeah, I was glad that it was that way. It doesn’t usually happen where he goes on the radio and he gives me a better number than what I thought.”
The deciding moment that led to Alex Palou winning the 2026 IndyCar Portland race
Asked about the overcut to take the lead following the first round of stops, the now 25-time race winner explained how good the car felt once Ericsson had pitted. He closed in a couple of tenths a lap before Rosenqvist boxed a tour earlier.
“Yeah, I mean, we were I would say like three, three and a half seconds back from Felix. Marcus was in between.
“The overcut doesn’t make anything there. Like, you don’t lose three seconds on an out lap. You lose one, one and a half. You risk it to close the gap.
“As soon as Marcus pitted, just go on the back of his car and just try and make him either pit or make a mistake, or in case he was going to pit before us, just to make sure that we’re going to have one clean lap to go for it.
“Once again, it doesn’t always work, because I was lucky that there was no traffic. I was lucky that my car was still handling super well.
“But as soon as I could see that my car was so good, I started pushing, the lap time started going down, I knew if the pit stop was good, we’re going to get him. It was great.”
