THERMAL — Patience was more than a virtue at Sunday’s inaugural Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix and Alex Palou picked the perfect spot to take the lead and win the race. Palou spent most of the race running in third place, sometimes 11 seconds behind Pato O’Ward. On lap 56, Palou passed O’Wa rd for the lead and held it for the last nine laps of the race. It punctuated a caution-free and mostly incident-free 65-lap race at Thermal Club. “You need to have a little bit of patience, but not too much,” said Palou, driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. “If you have too much patience, you’re going to struggle to pass.” O’Ward, driving the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, won the pole and had a healthy lead throughout the race. His Arrow McLaren teammate Christian Lundgaard, who started on the front row with O’Ward, kept Palou at bay for as long as he could. But after the final pit stops, Palou took advantage of fresh tires and overtook Lundgaard, in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, for second place on lap 51 after a fierce battle through the turns and banks. By lap 53, Palou cut O’Ward’s 11-second lead to five seconds. By lap 54, O’Ward’s lead was 2.4 seconds on the 3.067-mile course. Palou was closing fast and O’Ward was losing momentum. Two laps later, Palou was in the lead and O’Ward helplessly watched him pull away. “We had the car that had everything to lose because we started on the pole,” said O’Ward, who led a race-high 51 laps. “It kind of sucks to lose it at the end.” It was the second win in a row for Palou, the three-time NTT IndyCar Series champion. He won the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in Florida and won the IndyCar Series championship in 2023 and 2024. “My car was amazing today,” Palou said. But Palou said it was difficult biding his time in the early laps of the race watching O’Ward build a big lead. “I thought I need to still go slow and keep my rear tires on, although you see they are pushing a little bit more than you,” Palou said. When the checkered flag flew, O’Ward crossed the finish line second at Thermal Club, 10 seconds behind Palou. “We need to keep pushing,” O’Ward said. “We obviously weren’t perfect. There’s obviously some things we could have done better to give him more of a proper fight.” Lundgaard was third, 12 seconds behind Palou, giving Arrow McClaren two drivers on the podium. “We got to find a way to beat him,” Lundgaard said. “It’s a long race. It’s tough.” Colton Herta, driver of the No. 26 Andretti Global Honda, was fourth and Felix Rosenqvist, driver of the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda, was fifth. The TV broadcast on Fox was interrupted for technical difficulties for about 20 minutes, testing the patience of viewers too. Before the green flag dropped, Scott McLaughlin and Devlin DeFrancesco made contact. McLaughlin, driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet, ended up off the course and spun out. DeFrancesco, driver of the No. 30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda, was issued a drive-through penalty for causing McLaughlin’s car to spin out. It was one of the few on-track incidents during the race. McLaughlin ended up withdrawing on lap 53 when his hybrid engine started overheating and did not finish. Will Power, McLaughlin’s teammate and driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet, finished in sixth place, moving up 15 spots during the race. Palou increased his lead in the NTT IndyCar Series championship standings to 39 points after two races. O’Ward is in second place, followed by Scott Dixon in third. “Very good points day for the team today,” O’Ward said. Dixon finished in 10th place at Thermal Club and is 41 points behind Palou. “We love this feeling, obviously everybody does,” Palou said. “We never take anything for granted at least the team, anybody on the team, they just keep on working and giving me better cars and all the tools that I need to win. It’s been incredible.” Lungaard moved up four spots in the standings to fourth place and 42 points out of first place. Rosenqvist is in fifth place in the championship standings. The next race on the NTT IndyCar Series schedule is the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach from April 11-13, the 50th running of the race. Related Articles Motorsports | Arrow McLaren drivers sweep front row for Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix Motorsports | Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix gives drivers chance to capitalize on strong starts Motorsports | Drivers look forward to a test at Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix Motorsports | William Byron avoids late wrecks, wins 2nd straight Daytona 500 Motorsports | Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets another shot at Daytona 500 as a team owner ...read more read less