DETROIT, Mich — Alex Palou scored his second win in the last three races in Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. Here are some tidbits leaving the Motor City.

• Penske and Ganassi are dominating the series right now. Sunday was the second straight week that they’ve finished 1-2 and if you go back to the 2022 Indy 500, they’ve won 16 of the last 19 races (84.2%). On the season, they’re 6-for-7 (85.7%). They have 6 of the top 8 in points including 1-4.
• Honda is tops on street courses. They’re 3-for-3 with 6 of the 9 podium finishers. Chip Ganassi Racing has won 2 of those 3 races with taking 4 of the 9 podium spots. Andretti Autosport and Arrow McLaren Racing each have two while Team Penske has one.
• Grosjean, O’Ward throwing away opportunities – Both entered in the top four in points heading into the Month of May. They both sit 84 and 128 points back respectively leaving Detroit. Grosjean crashed while running for the lead with 29 laps left in St. Pete. He crashed while running fourth with two laps remaining in Texas. He crashed with 49 laps left in Indy and crashed again with 20 laps-to-go while running seventh in Detroit. Pato O’Ward crashed while running for third in Indy, had a bad pit stop while leading in Detroit then later crashed and was overzealous in Long Beach. In the races that they were patient. O’Ward finished second in Long Beach and Texas, Grosjean finished second in the next two races, O’Ward was second in the GMR Grand Prix. That’s the first five races that they combined to finish runner-up in all. The last two weeks…they’ve both crashed.

• Palou putting pressure on the field – Sunday was Alex Palou’s 6th straight top 5 finish and 7th top 10 in as many races. He’s won two of the last three races and has taken a three points deficit to a 51 point lead. He’s now putting pressure on the field. Palou has scored 22 top five finishes in the last 40 races. Among those 22 are 16 podium finishes. By comparison, over that same span, Scott Dixon has 21 top five finishes but 10 of those were on the podium. Marcus Ericsson has 11 top five finishes with 9 of those on the podium. The thing is, he has 31 top 10’s in this span. Just 9 of those 31 top 10’s were on the podium. Palou has 35 top 10’s in that span with 16 on the podium. See the difference? Same for Josef Newgarden. He has 30 top 10 finishes with 18 of those in the top five but just 13 of those 30 were on the podium. Palou is consistently in the top 10 (87.5%) with 55% in the top five and 40% of the time on the podium. In order to make up that gap, you have to start winning and doing so in bunches. In order to do that, you have to take risks.
• Dixon – While he has four straight top seven finishes on the season and six in seven races, Dixon has led just 8 total laps all year. If you go back to Iowa last season, he’s led 23 laps in the last 14 races. For a driver with 6,537 laps led, it’s rare to see this few right now.
• Power’s Rise In Record Books – Will Power scored his 68th career top two finish on Sunday (41 wins, 27 runner-ups) to go along with 125 top fives and 174 top 10’s.
• McLaughlin, Newgarden Frustration – McLaughlin started off on the front row. In his previous five tries, he had a top two finish in each including three wins. Newgarden rolled off fifth. Neither ended up in the top five at the end. McLaughlin was outside the top five after being on the wrong tire strategy and limped home seventh. Newgarden had a slow opening pit stop and never truly rebounded and finished 10th. McLaughlin has four top 10’s this season but only one top five. Newgarden has five top 10’s but his only top fives are his two wins.
• McLaren Close – Arrow McLaren Racing is 0-for-7 this season in regards to victories. In fact, they’ve won just once in the last 20 races. However, among the 7 races this season, they’ve had the next best finisher in three of them. They’ve been on the podium in four of the seven races too. While the “Big 2” have 6 of the top 8 spots in points, McLaren has the other two (P5-P6). All three drivers are in the top 10 in points. The only other team represented in the top 10 is Andretti (9th). They had two of the three podium spots in the GMR Grand Prix last month. All three cars finished in the top five that day. In Detroit, they had two of their three cars again in the top five.
• Rosenqvist’s Rise – He now has four top 10 finishes over the last five races including a pair of top fives in the last three. He had three total top five finishes in 2022 and already has two in the first seven races in 2023. In fact, the Swedish driver is really starting to find his groove. That all started in last year’s GMR Grand Prix. Prior to that, he had no top five finishes, just two top 10’s and 14 laps led in his first 18 starts with McLaren. Over his last 20, he’s had 14 top 10 finishes, five top fives and 65 laps led.
• Rossi’s Quick Study – He just scored his fifth top 10 finish of the season already including four of which being in the top five. He was third in the GMR Grand Prix, fifth in the last two races (Indy 500, Detroit). By comparison, he had just three top five finishes with Andretti in 2021 and five each for the 2020 and 2022 seasons. He’s nearly had as many top fives in 7 starts with McLaren than he had in full seasons with Andretti. Rossi went from 14th in points entering the Month of May to sixth three races later.
• Armstrong quietly impressive – Marcus Armstrong has seen none of these tracks before. Heck, he’s not even full-time. What’s impressive about this is, he’s only finished worse than 11th just once in five career starts. He was 11th in St. Pete, 8th in Long Beach, 11th in Barber, 15th in the GMR Grand Prix and now 8th in Detroit. He’s 17th in points right now ahead of drivers like Graham Rahal, David Malukas, Conor Daly, Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud. He’s done so and missed two races to let Takuma Sato in that seat.
• DeFrancesco Improving – For the fourth straight race, Devlin DeFrancesco has improved his finishing position from the race prior. He was 23rd in Barber to 17th in the GMR Grand Prix to 13th in the Indy 500 to now 12th in Detroit. After two crashes to begin the year off with and three finishes of 23rd or worse in four races, he’s now had three straight results of 17th or better including two in the top 15. That’s all you can ask for in the fourth car in the Andretti stable.

• Kirkwood Street Ace – Kyle Kirkwood qualified 5th in St. Pete and did so crashing, In Long Beach he started on the pole and won. For Detroit, he crashed with pole potential (was 3rd in both practices) and despite being ran over at the start, rebounded to finish sixth.
• Where’s Herta? He’s ninth in points but has led just five total laps all season. He has four top 10 finishes and 11th on Sunday, but just one top five effort all year.
• Malukas slipping – David Malukas started 2023 off with a pair of top 10 finishes. He was fifth in points leaving Texas. He’s lost 14 spots now and sits 19th. He crashed out in each of the last three races and has finished 19th or worse in five straight (20th, 19th, 26th, 29th, 23rd).