On Sunday at Mid-Ohio, three-time IndyCar Alex Palou showed he was human after all. The Chip Ganassi driver made a big unforced error to lose a certain victory with six laps to go, ultimately having to settle for P2.
Alex Palou on his Mid-Ohio IndyCar blunder
After doing the three-stop versus the two-stop of teammate Scott Dixon, the Spaniard looked to have won that duel as he rejoined just over a second ahead of his Kiwi stablemate once he made his third stop with 18 laps to go.
However, there was a nasty sting to come for the dominant driver in the series this year. Palou had a moment at turn 9 as he briefly lost the rear, ending up on the grass. Although he recovered it pretty quickly, Dixon had got by.
Before the error, he was 4s ahead of the six-time champion. Palou was kicking himself after the race.
“Big mistake, man. Big mistake. Yeah, nothing in particular happened. Just lost it a little bit. Then kind of got into the marbles and went out.
“Yeah, lost everything there. It was a big, big mistake by my part. The car was on fire today. The team gave me, as well, the strategy, the pit stops we needed to win the race.
“But yeah, man, it’s not over until it’s over, until you see the chequered flag. I was just trying to push. I was trying to open the gap a little bit more with Scott. I felt confident with the car.
“Yeah, just lost it.”
Expanding on his error
Palou explained that after collecting the car up following his rare mistake, low RPM meant he lost more valuable time as he looked to stay in the lead. Ultimately he gave up around 5 seconds as he was 1.1s behind Dixon when he got back up to speed.
Nonetheless the 28-year-old was aware of how lucky he was to avoid a crash and DNF.
“Yeah, the issue was the marbles, getting into the marbles, then I had it felt like ice, and then I got into the curb and I couldn’t get out of the curb and the RPM dropped a lot and I didn’t have any power at all. I was full throttle, but it was just going so slow.
“Yeah, it could have been a lot worse. I could have ended up on the tires real easily, and the tyres are not very far away from the curb in that corner.
“Yeah, all in all, it was a good save. I can say instead of a mistake, it was a good save. Yeah, I’ll take it that way. It was a good save.”
Trying to reclaim the lead from Scott Dixon
In the final five laps, Alex Palou looked to take back P1 from his teammate and one of the GOATs of Motorsport this century, Scott Dixon.
However, it was not to be for the Spanaird as the New Zealander won a race in an IndyCar season for the 21st campaign in succession. It was his seventh win at Mid-Ohio.
Palou explained how his tyres had fallen off. It meant he could not get close enough to attack his teammate even with a fuel and tyre advantage.
“Trying to pass him you mean? Once I was second, I knew I had to be more fuel than him and a little bit more OT. I tried, but I couldn’t really make it.
“I was starting to struggle on tyres as well with the rears, so I couldn’t really do the lines to avoid dirty air and so on, like in Turn 2. I tried. I tried. I think less than half a second to close.
“Yeah, it was tough to pass for sure.”
Learning more from losing than winning
As many of the greats have said across various sports over the decades and centuries, they learn more about themselves from moments of adversity versus when they win.
The rarest of errors from Alex Palou was a moment he hopes to learn from. There can be no question this mistake hurt him deeply.
“Yeah, for sure. I agree with that. I think when you lose — I think we lost today. It’s not like we got beaten, but we lost it, myself. Yeah, that’s going to hurt a little bit.
“I’m hopefully going to learn from that. It’s still good in a way that we got one-two; we lost it but we kept it in the team. I think that’s going to keep the team happier and Chip happier.
“But yeah, for sure it hurts, man. It hurts doing a big mistake like that when you could have just — it’s easy now to just say, save a little bit there, you don’t need to be on the limit. But when you’re driving, you don’t feel like you’re that in the limit.
“Yeah, it’ll take a couple of hours, but then at the end of the day we still finished second, still had an amazing weekend, and we should be proud about that.”
A doubleheader at Iowa takes place this weekend. Alex Palou will look to return to his absolute best as he heads towards a fourth IndyCar championship following the P2 at Mid-Ohio.
