Álex Palou secured his fifth victory at Round 12 of the 2026 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season at the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix, held at Nashville Superspeedway.
The reigning champion succeeded Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who has an impressive record of oval wins. Meanwhile, Newgarden’s teammate David Malukas finished third after starting 25th on the grid.
After starting fourth for the 2026 IndyCar Nashville round, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver seized a late-race opportunity to secure victory after a well-timed caution altered the race strategy in his favor.
Taking the lead on Lap 131, Palou and his strategist, Barry Wanser, decided to take a calculated risk by pitting the Spaniard for the primary Firestone tyres.
Although this choice posed challenges after the final restart, Palou successfully held off his competitors until the last lap. This win not only extended his championship lead but also marked Chip Ganassi Racing’s 150th INDYCAR victory.
Caution played a key role in helping Palou claim 2026 IndyCar Nashville victory
Although the decisive caution played into the No. 10 team’s hands, Palou believed the performance was there regardless, having already fought his way into contention before taking control in the closing stages.
“Incredible honestly. Just, yeah, I’m so happy,” Palou shared post-race.
“I knew we had the great car. It’s one of those tracks that we’ve been struggling in the past. I know last year we were second, but we kind of got very lucky with a yellow there.
“Today it helped us. I’m not going to say that the yellow didn’t help us. We were already P3, P2. We were right there. The 10 car, I was struggling a little bit at the beginning, but at the end I was so comfortable, especially once we got into the lead.”
His competitor, Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, has built quite the reputation as one of IndyCar’s finest drivers on ovals. The Spaniard revealed that his biggest concern was navigating lapped traffic, knowing it would present Newgarden with his best opportunity to challenge for the lead.
“I was a bit nervous to get into traffic because I know that’s when Josef kind of shines. He’s been the best the last seasons. I was like, Please, Alex, you need to do it. I was committed. I wanted to try and give my best. Yeah, I’m just so happy that everything worked.”
Ganassi strategy pays off after timely caution period in Nashville
CGR strategist Barry Wanser explained his reasoning behind the team’s decision-making, implying that the caution period just happened to align with their execution. However, the choice to pit was primarily based on traffic and tyre performance, rather than relying on the chance of a yellow flag.
“We got lucky on the yellow. Everyone keeps saying we came in to catch a yellow, but we came in because we caught traffic and we got the most out of the tyres on the car. We came in, took a chance, and we lucked out.”
Wanser also joked about the #10 car for staying intact even when Palou had made a supposed attempt to “crash” it.
“I want to thank the race car today for not crashing because Alex tried to crash the car. Fortunately, the car didn’t want to crash today.“
Heat tested field during 2026 IndyCar Nashville round
After being postponed to a Monday due to torrential rain and shortened to 225 laps, the Nashville race was contested in overbearing summer temperatures. Though Palou admitted the adrenaline concealed much of the physical strain until after the chequered flag.
“Yeah, I mean, I’m tired. Like I can feel the heat. Yeah, I think also David probably is driving injured, and Josef as well, right? That doesn’t help.”
“But yeah, I’m feeling good. I mean, I’m tired. The heat was very high. Especially once I got out of the car, I kind of felt everything. While I was driving, I think with the adrenaline and everything you just continue to go and you don’t really feel much.”
The driver also praised both Malukas and Newgarden for managing over 200 laps with injuries in the scorching Nashville heat, “Yeah, I can’t imagine driving injured like they did.”
Passing made a challenge due to track conditions
“Yeah, tough day” is how the driver summed up most of his day as dirty air and tyre marbles made passing difficult for much of the race.
“It was tough. Yeah, I don’t know if people were able to move or not. It was just very tough because it was quite easy to be flat out when you were in the lead. Then once you lose a little bit of downforce, you have nowhere to go, right?
“There was quite a lot of marbles. I think INDYCAR did an amazing job on the track to clean those marbles. You could see on the restarts we were able to run side by side.”
Championship fight far from over for Palou and CGR
Asked whether the title fight had tightened following Mid-Ohio — thanks to his growing points advantage — Palou insisted the championship remained far from over and praised the consistency of his closest rivals pointing to the No. 27 of Kyle Kirkwood, the No. 12 of David Malukas and the No. 7 of Christian Lundgaard as drivers who have regularly featured near the front throughout the season.
“I mean, it’s very close this year. You can see the time charts after 10 minutes in practice the 27, the 12, the 7, they’re normally up there. They’re not making it easy.
“I know it’s going to be a tough fight till the end, especially being so back-to-back races. But yeah, we’re ready for it. I think we’ve done obviously the best we could this weekend. I’m very happy we got a win here at a place that probably we didn’t expect coming into it.
“Yeah, it’s great. But although we have a good cushion, we need to keep making it bigger and keep it to the end.”
Portland test offers chance to prepare for title run
Looking ahead to the next phase of the championship, Palou welcomed the opportunity to complete a long-awaited road course test at Portland, admitting Ganassi has had little opportunity to test on permanent circuits this season.
“Yeah, you never know with testing. Like, we’ve seen some teams testing at Road America while we didn’t. I think we had the best car there to win. But it’s going to be great. We haven’t had a test in a road course since I don’t know when. Probably we haven’t had any this year.”
Palou never felt comfortable despite leading final stint
The final stint presented another obstacle for the race winner. While much of the leading group, like Newgarden and Malukas, fitted the softer alternate tyres, Palou restarted on the harder primary compound with the #2 Team Penske Chevrolet directly behind.
Despite leading the field, he admitted that relaxing felt impossible during the closing laps, knowing that Newgarden had shown exceptional pace throughout the afternoon and could come at him any moment.
“I knew it was going to be very tough just because I saw how he [Newgarden] was racing at the beginning of the race with Kyle. They were both flat out. I was flat out, as well. I could see that being behind for the first five, six laps, you could have an advantage. It was like this close to just making it.
“Yeah, I was not confident at all,” the reigning champion admitted. “He was right there, man. I was flat out. I really couldn’t do anything. There was no more I could do. I’m sure he was the same. But just kind of with the draft, it was helping him a lot to kind of get closer to us.
“I think once he started degrading the tyres and we got through traffic, that’s when I got a gap. But no, I was not confident at all.”
Wanser chimed in and explained the team’s tyre strategy had effectively been decided based on the sets available.
“At that point we had to choose. We had two sets of sticker blacks and a used set of softs, the alternates. It made it pretty easy. We wanted to finish on the primaries. That was the goal and it worked out. But generally we were all nervous about the restart. The Honda horsepower came through.”
Nashville guitar carries extra significance for the CGR driver
The Nashville winner’s guitar carried extra meaning after narrowly missing out on receiving one last year. Fast forward to a year later, the Spaniard was gifted one by none other than country music star Scott Borchetta.
“Yeah, I was,” the driver shared while recaling last year’s disappointment. “I thought we were going to get one. Actually Scott gave me one the day after. I went to his studio, which was very nice of him. But this one is cooler. It’s not cooler, but it means more than the other one.
“So cool to get the guitar as a race win.”
Memorable weekend for Spain in IndyCar and the FIFA World Cup
When reminded that Spain had lifted the FIFA World Cup the previous day, Palou was glad to know it was capping off an already memorable weekend for his home country.
“Very cool. I mean, I was following it obviously. I wanted them to score a little bit earlier so we could go racing. It’s just very cool for the country to get another World Cup. I’m sure that everybody in Spain is going crazy and they’re going to celebrate for the next probably six months or so.
“It’s great for us to top it off with a race win today.”
Cautious for the final six rounds of the 2026 IndyCar season
While the victory extended Palou’s championship advantage by 27 points, he doesn’t believe it gives him an edge to control the championship. The Ganassi driver remains wary of several factors, crediting several unpredictable rounds, including Milwaukee and newer venues such as Markham and DC.
“I wish. I don’t think so,” his response to whether he controls the championship from here on out.
“Like, Milwaukee is a doubleheader. Although we were really good last year, we didn’t do very good at the test last week or two weeks ago. But anyway, even Portland, yeah, we were good, but I don’t know about this year. We were very good last year on road courses. Now suddenly we’re good on street courses out of nowhere. That’s the kind of stuff you cannot really predict much.
“But yeah, having that said, I like the races that we’re going to. Markham is a new track. What’s going to happen? Are we going to struggle, dominate? Nobody knows. Same for DC.
“There’s a lot of unknowns still. It’s still very early. I wouldn’t trade, like, my points with anyone. But still a long stretch ahead.”
Palou still sees room for improvement despite leading
Despite being considered one of INDYCAR’s finest drivers at the moment, often labelled as “perfect”, Palou believes there is still room to improve.
“A lot of stuff. I think that’s the beauty of this sport or every sport or life in general, you can always be a little bit better.
“Yeah, man, I’ve done mistakes this year that I don’t want to do. I can always be a little faster. I think today the race how I did it, I really like. I’m proud because I normally have been struggling. We were on the lead with 30 laps to go, or even 20 laps to go as well last year here, and I lost it because I couldn’t move through traffic. Getting that today kind of makes me feel very, very happy.
“But you can always keep on improving on everything.”
