PLYMOUTH, Wisc — Colton Herta pit a lap too soon. That decision not only took away a win, but a podium at that. As a result, it gifted the win to Sunday’s Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America to a driver who didn’t really need it.

Alex Palou passed Herta for the win on Lap 49 and would never look back en route to his seventh career NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory including three of which in the last four races.

Palou just kind of stalked Herta all race and did what he had to do in order to make himself in the right spot at the right time. When Herta pit on Lap 12, Palou followed. When Herta pit on Lap 26, Palou followed. However, when Herta pit on Lap 40, Palou didn’t follow.

It was a little early in the pit window and Palou and his Chip Ganassi Racing team elected to go one more lap. By doing so, he was allowed to push the final 14 laps to the finish. Herta couldn’t. That’s why despite Herta cycling to the lead on Lap 47, Palou was right there to capitalize on Herta’s bad pit strategy.

“Yeah, honestly the first couple of laps that he did on the blacks, he was really, really fast. I was like, Man, he’s pushing very hard. I don’t know if I can catch him,” Palou admitted.

“Once my tires were into temperature, I was able to catch him. I saw that he was struggling a little bit more. He had to save more fuel than us because he pitted one lap early. We were just a little bit better on tire deg, as well.

“I was just trying to push him to use the push to pass, then overtake him. It worked. So, yeah, he was doing a great race. I don’t know if they were struggling a lot on the alternates. Actually he was pulling away on the alternates, as well.

“Yeah, great day for us.”

Now, he opens up his points lead from 51 to 74 heading into Mid-Ohio in two weeks, a spot where he has two straight podium finishes at.

Josef Newgarden finished runner-up in his No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet while Pato O’Ward, Scott Dixon and Herta rounded out the top five in the exhilarating 55 lap race.

Here are my top five takeaways.

Gut Wrenching Ending For Herta

Colton Herta said he had the best car out there in Sunday’s Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America. He wasn’t wrong. He started on the pole and led a race-high 33 of 55 laps under the sun filled Wisconsin skies. However, a bad strategy call took not only a win away, but a spot on the podium as well.

Herta led the first 11 laps before pitting for the first time on Lap 12. He’d take the lead back over on Lap 13 and would lead again until his second stop on Lap 25. Both times were under caution. The second one, he had a slower stop which took him from first to third among the leaders. The thing is, both Marcus Armstrong and Will Power didn’t pit which also meant Herta would be restarting the race from fifth.

He made quick work of Josef Newgarden on the Lap 28 restart and one lap later, moved by Alex Palou for what was going to be the top spot again once this cycled back.

Armstrong pit on Lap 30. Power pit on Lap 32. Herta inherited the lead back on Lap 33 and was sailing away with this.

Then came the questionable pit decision by his pit box. They called him down on Lap 40. It was 15 laps from the end. He could make it, but had to save some fuel in order to do so. The rest of the field didn’t follow him down. They pit a lap later.

That 4.014 extra miles allowed them to push until the end while Herta was in fuel save mode. While he took the lead back on Lap 47, he only held onto it for two laps. Palou got by on Lap 48 and a few laps later, then came the rest.

Herta faded to fifth in the end. It was a dejecting finish for a driver with so much promise. He still doesn’t have a podium this season and only has two top fives now at that.

Last year, he was happy with a fifth place finish as he did so from starting 11th. This year, it was much different circumstances for which he was gutted for his fourth fifth place finish in the last five races here.

This can’t make bossman Michael Andretti very happy. He made mention before the season opener in St. Pete that the entire organization studied these types of scenarios this offseason to improve upon.

8 races in, they’re still making the same mistakes.

“I mean we did have many races where we had very fast cars last year, but we tended to do something wrong, shoot ourselves in the foot one way or another,” Andretti said back in March. “That’s another thing we’ve really studied and worked on. Hopefully our pit stops will be better and strategies will be better.

“We really worked on trying to be a lot more detail-oriented, things like that.

“I hope it pays off.”

So far, it’s not.

Romain Grosjean’s free fall continues. Entering the Month of May, he had two poles and a third place start in the first four races. He also had two consecutive runner-up finishes and sat fifth in points (-15).

Since?

His starts are 18th, 19th, 3rd and 19th with finishes of 11th, 30th, 24th and now 25th.

For the second straight race, Kyle Kirkwood was involved in a first lap crash in the first corner. For the second consecutive race, he’d rebound to finish in the top 10 as well. It makes you wonder what he could do if he kept his starting spot up front.

Still, Grosjean crashed going for the lead with 29 to go in St. Pete. He crashed from fourth with two laps left in Texas in a race that 3 of their 4 cars crashed. Grosjean was on the wrong end of strategy in Barber and finished runner-up.

The Month of May was dismal for the entire organization, Detroit was just okay and now Road America was a tough finish.

---

Is Championship Race Over?

Alex Palou was a driver I was watching this weekend. Even after a mistake in Saturday’s practice, he still rebounded to qualify third and a day after that, won his third race in the last four tries. As a result, it opens up an insurmountable points lead to 74 points over teammate Marcus Ericsson. Josef Newgarden is 81 points out. Pato O’Ward and Scott Dixon are tied for fourth but 98 points arrears. Everyone else is 125+ behind.

With 9 races remaining, can anyone catch him?

“It’s kind of out of our control,” said second place finisher, Josef Newgarden on Sunday. “They’ve had a good run up to this point, right? They’ve not had a bad race. I think that’s to be expected.

“We had an engine pop on us in the very first round. Everybody has a different story. If you look at their story, they’ve not had one bad race yet. When you have eight races in a row without a bad one, this is what happens points-wise.

“What’s going to happen on the final nine, it’s impossible to say. There’s so much season still that he’s got a good cushion at this point, they’ve done a great job, but I don’t think that guarantees anything in INDYCAR.”

Even with podium finishes for Newgarden and Pato O’Ward in Road America, they were still disappointed to see Palou extend his lead.

“Obviously happy with the result. But yeah, I think we all need to be better if we want to catch the 10 car,” O’Ward lambasted. “That’s just the reality of it. We had a massive opportunity to capitalize and I think to win this race, because I feel like I definitely had the pace. We kind of threw that away in our last pit stop.

“Yeah, we’re just going to keep on fighting. We win together, we lose together. That’s how it’s always going to be.

“So, yeah, I’m excited for the nine races to come. It’s still a long championship, lots can happen. We just need to keep improving.”

Newgarden agreed saying that he felt like while Palou had the field covered in the end, he could have done a better job in the middle of the race to get ahead of the Spaniard.

 “I mean, it was a pretty good day. Yeah, it was an okay day,” said the Indy 500 champion. “Disappointing for the way it finished for us just because there was a great opportunity in the middle to win this race.

“I think at the end Alex had the field covered. He was very good on that final stint. I don’t think we were going to make anything happen there. In the middle there was a great opportunity, we just didn’t capitalize on it. Got pretty dicey with the restarts.

“I’m conflicted because on the one hand it was a great recovery for all of us on Team Penske. We started this weekend in pretty bad shape, were really far off the pace. We chipped away at it, did a lot of work, felt like we got really close in qualifying, had a really good race car.

“From that standpoint I’m elated, but just disappointed. Looked like we had an opportunity today and we weren’t really able to seal the deal. It was a great job for our team.”

Palou has been untouchable. The Spaniard is on a string of races to where he’s started 3rd, 1st, 1st and 3rd and finished 1st, 4th, 1st and 1st. He’s led 172 of the 440 laps in the process.

He went from nine points down entering the Month of May to 74 points up leaving Road America. The only real way to catch him now is if he makes some uncharacteristically bad mistakes and I use that in plural since he has such a big cushion.

So far? Palou hasn’t really had that many races that didn’t go well.

He won by nearly 20-seconds in the GMR Grand Prix. He overcame Rinus VeeKay running into him on pit road in the Indy 500 to finish fourth. Prior to May, he was eighth in St. Pete, third in Texas and fifth in Long Beach and Barber respectively.

He led 22 laps in Texas, two in Long Beach, 52 in the GMR Grand Prix, 36 in the Indy 500, 76 more in Detroit and 10 in Road America.

For a series that has seen the championship not decided until the final race for 18 straight years now, Palou is on a pace to maybe wrap this up early.

The thing is, he’s not overly confident in doing so either.

“Yeah, I mean, I would understand racing for points on the last two races, but it’s too early,” he notes. “We did eight races. There’s still eight or nine left.

“Yeah, I mean, somebody else can do the same amount of points that we did, or even more, with the races that we have left.

“Yeah, we’re going to focus on scoring wins because that’s the way we can score more points. That’s the best way. Honestly, there’s some races coming up now that are still really good for us and we know we’re going to have a car and my confidence to fight for wins.

“I mean, everybody can win seven races in a row. It’s tough in INDYCAR, but we can do that. Somebody else could do that.

“We’re going to focus on each weekend. Each weekend is different. It’s like the work starts from zero. We’re taking that mentality this year. I think it’s working, it’s paying off.

“So yeah, I’m glad that we have those points in our camp, and we don’t have to catch other people, but I’m not relaxed by the points gap at all because it’s INDYCAR. If it was another series, yeah, maybe I would be a bit more relaxed. In INDYCAR you can’t.

“We’re going to keep pushing and trying for the wins, focus on the championship the last couple races.”

When going back to last year, he won the season finale by a half-a-minute in leading 67 of 95 laps in the process. It was that weekend he and Ganassi patched things up and off he’s went since with an average finish of 3.2 over the last nine races. He’s led 265 laps in that span with four race wins.

Prior to last year’s season finale, Palou had just two podiums in 12 starts. That’s because of his battle with Ganassi to leave and go to McLaren. His access was cutoff and it cost him results.

Still, while in that battle, he did have eight top 10’s. It’s just the fact that he had three podiums in the four races to start last season before these issues arose.

He’s by far the top driver in this paddock right now.

Next up is to Mid-Ohio to where he’s finished third and second the last two years. Then it’s to Toronto to where he was sixth as a rookie there a year ago but has finished fifth and first respectively in his last two street races.

While Iowa and Gateway could pose problems, you still have the Indy Road course (he won the last time out), Portland (he won in 2021) and Laguna Seca (he won last year) left too.

His lead could be approaching 100 leaving Mid-Ohio.

“Yeah, absolutely. I feel a lot better,” Palou said on this run compared to his 2021 championship season. “In ’21, everything was new for me. I didn’t really know how to manage stuff. It was all new for me.

“At least now I have some more experience both on track and off track. Hopefully we can maintain that gap.”

---

Pato O’Ward Rebounds, McLaren Still Frustrated

Pato O’Ward had a nice rebound on Sunday in more than one way. He rebounded on the season to where he came into the race weekend on the heels of finishes of 24th and 26th respectively. That dropped him from second in points to fifth.

He also rebounded in the race. After being punted by Kyle Kirkwood on the opening lap, to being penalized two spots for blocking a few moments later, he found himself back in ninth place. Here we go again we thought.

Instead, O’Ward quietly did what he had to do in order to get himself back up in the hunt again. He steadily moved up and in the end, found himself back in the top five coming to the final stops. In fact, he was third coming to his final pit stop.

Unfortunately, he was back down to fifth after but with a pass and Colton Herta’s bad pit call, it brought O’Ward back up to the podium to bring his No. 5 Dallara-Chevrolet home in third for his 17th career podium finish in 63 starts.

“It was a hard-fought podium for my 5 camp,” said O’Ward. “We were a bit of a ping-pong ball in the start of the race in turn one and turn three, then got shuffled back even more. So, yeah, we had to pass everybody on track.”

It was a momentum building type of effort as he’s now finished 4th, 2nd, 3rd on natural road courses in 2023. The problem is, with Alex Palou winning three of the last four races, O’Ward, even with a podium, finds himself 98 points back.

“Obviously happy with the result,” O’Ward said. “But yeah, I think we all need to be better if we want to catch the 10 car. That’s just the reality of it. I think same as Josef, we had a massive opportunity to capitalize and I think to win this race, because I feel like I definitely had the pace. We kind of threw that away in our last pit stop.

“Yeah, we’re just going to keep on fighting. We win together, we lose together. That’s how it’s always going to be.

“So, yeah, I’m excited for the nine races to come. It’s still a long championship, lots can happen. We just need to keep improving.”

Unfortunately for his teammates, their momentum was halted.

Felix Rosenqvist started 16th and moved up to 14th on Lap 8 but was punted by Rinus VeeKay in Turn 3. That dropped the Swedish driver down to last as a result. However, he rebounded to get back up inside the top 10 coming to the second to last stint but faded back down to finish 20th.

For Alexander Rossi, he did score his fifth consecutive top 10 finish. However, his second best starting spot of the season left him with his third worst result. That’s what’s frustrating for him. He spoke the last month or so that if he just qualified better, then they’d have a better shot at a win.

“We’ve had a really strong pace on Sundays, we just haven’t gotten the results that we feel like we deserve. We’re missing a little bit on Saturdays,” he admitted. “I mean, it’s a very different car than I’m used to. I just haven’t quite found my happy spot for like the ultimate lap. It’s close. It seems like we’re permanently qualifying 10th, 11th or 12th. It’s not a disaster. We’re certainly much better in race pace, or have been so far this year.

“I mean, it’s not the end of the world. We’ll get there. It’s competitive, and you can’t be missing a 10th of a second. Ultimately that’s what we’re missing.”

Entering the weekend, Rossi had qualified between 10th-13th in 5 of the 7 races. The only two he didn’t were on the oval at Texas and Indianapolis to where he qualified 3rd and 5th respectively.

Now, he started fifth but had a car capable of more.

Rossi entered Saturday’s knockout qualifying as the favorite to win the pole. After being quickest in both practice sessions this weekend and scoring the pole here a year ago, he was a disappointing fifth in the Fast Six round. In fact, he was slowest among the drivers because Kyle Kirkwood didn’t make a lap after having a mechanical problem at the end of the second round.

That’s got to be disappointing for Rossi to not back up that early speed with a pole nor even a topo five finish on Sunday. He’s seventh in points (-128).

---

Great Strategy for Dixon, Ericsson, Not So Much For Armstrong

Chip Ganassi Racing went with four different strategies for four different drivers. Alex Palou took the conservative route by pitting with the customary pit sequences. He’d win as a result of that.

Marcus Ericsson did a similar thing but altered his tires approach. They pit on the same laps as Palou, but went blacks, reds, black, blacks to where Palou went black, black, reds, blacks. As a result, on his stint on reds, Ericsson went from ninth to 13th. He’d gain those four spots back and more by going from 13th to sixth in the final stint for his 44th career top 10 finish including all eight races run this season.

Scott Dixon went the most extreme and it paid off in a massive way. Dixon, collected in a practice crash on Saturday morning with Will Power, struggled in qualifying and didn’t advance out of the first round. He’d start 23rd as a result.

Dixon said his car just wasn’t truly ready to qualify as the streering and braking was just off for what he needed out of his No. 9 Dallara-Honda. In saying that, he gained 19 spots in the race to finish fourth.

How?

Well, on that opening lap crash, Dixon got off the alternate tires on Lap 2. He’d pit again with the leaders on Lap 12. He pit again with them on Lap 26. This time, they all had to run the alternates for this stint. Dixon didn’t. He already used his.

This is where he made up the most ground in going from ninth to the top five. He didn’t even run a full lap on reds to where the rest had to run 14-15 laps. That was the difference maker. Dixon ended up with his second consecutive fourth place finish and sixth top six result in the eight races run this season.

It’s a Dixon type of season but due to his teammate being so damn dominant, Dixon finds himself 98 points out.

For Marcus Armstrong, it was an eventful day out of him. He went from 8th to 3rd on the opening lap and ran the entire first stint there. After his first stop, he went from 3rd to 4th and had to give up another spot for an unsafe release. That had him fifth on the restart. However, he quickly moved back to fourth on Lap 19. He was passed again shortly after (Lap 22). On Lap 24, he looked at passing Alexander Rossi back, but he looked outside. It wasn’t going to work. He slowed but was passed by both Pato O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard dropping him from fifth to seventh.

A lap later, the final caution for David Malukas stalling. A lap after that, the leaders pit. his team kept him out. That was the dagger. He was 24th once he finally pit and finished there.

---

Race Delivered

Everyone was wondering coming into the day if Sunday’s Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America would be a sloppy one. After several drivers running off the track over the course of the race weekend, the track surface was put to blame.

For the first time in nearly three decades, the 4.014-mile Road America racing surface was recently repaved this offseason. The thing is, it wasn’t ready however until the first week of May to even be used. So, this track was truly a green one coming into Sunday’s race.

As a result, Road America has been a tough one to figure out thus far. As usual, the repair has caused Road America to become a one groove track and if you get outside of the racing line, you’ve become a passenger.

“This track’s terrible; when you go off, they do a terrible job here so they need to pick up their game,” Power said. “You go off, you break your back every time; done it a couple of times this weekend so they need a kick in the butt.”

With a new surface, the cars are traveling at a faster rate of speed. Because of that, you’ll be carrying more speed into the entry of corners. If you miss the mark doing so, you better find a way to spin it around before you make contact with the wall or tire barriers.

“It’s just a very strange feeling, at least for me, inside the car,” said pole sitter, Colton Herta. “I’m sure it’s different team to team and whatnot. For me it’s a very strange feeling at the wheel. I think it shows by how many guys have been kind of trickling off the track, just having weird spins.

“For me, it’s been one of the tougher tracks to get ahold of. It’s almost like there’s very little feedback from the wheel, so you’re seeing guys spin, just don’t really know it’s going to happen, which was the way it was for me a few times.”

Herta spun multiple times on Saturday including in the second round. He did so on purpose he said because he knew he got in too hot in Turn 1 and had to do something.

“Because it’s a lot tougher when you hit something,” said Herta on the spin. “When you just spin, go off, have a spin, it’s really not that big of a deal.”

As far as why, it’s because in last week’s test and all the practice and qualifying thus far, everyone is using the same line and building rubber up in those spots. As a result, there’s no rubber or grip away from the racing line and it’s creating chaos.

“I think obviously the following will be different to what it’s been in the last few years just because offline, the balance, the car just turns upside down if you go offline,” second place starter, Pato O’Ward, said on if he expected chaos for Sunday’s 55 lap race.

“I think that’s obviously going to make passing tricky. It will make guys trying to get a bit of cleaner air on at least half of their wing. There is a penalty to pay for that. It doesn’t seem to pay off yet.

“Yeah, I see it being there’s maybe a lane and a half of, like, very high grip. But you go off of that, and it’s like ice. I think that’s also why there’s just been a lot of excursions. You miss it by just a tad, and it’s like, What happened to the car?

“To extract the lap time, especially now with the new pavement, like there is so much more grip, but it’s only in the line. You have to commit so much into the corners where a lot of the times it kind of bites once you’re already committed. I think that’s why you see a lot of spins, a lot of guys going off, just a lot of random snaps. It makes you feel like there’s unlimited amounts of grip, but there’s obviously limits to everything.”

Herta agreed.

“It’s very treacherous off the line,” he said. “It’s going to make it interesting to see if guys are going to defend into five or if guys are going to try to pass and it’s going to happen.

“We’re braking so late now at all those corners, braking is probably 175 feet before turn feet, 180 to 60 miles an hour. The grip is insane right now that the track is producing.

“But like Pato said, it’s only the line. Once you get half a tire width off of it, you can’t recover it because you’re going so fast.”

In saying that, everyone expected chaos in Detroit and it never materialized. After another race like that, it goes to show, we should stop questioning the process.

This was one of the best races Road America has seen.

The passing stats are through the roof. 444 on-track passes in this race. 386 were for position. 110 came in the top 10 today. There were 32 in the top five. All these are smashing the numbers since INDYCAR started recording these numbers in 2016 at Road America.

“I mean, it was an unbelievable race,” said second place finisher Josef Newgarden. “I think as a driver, not always what you want. You want to be just out front, kind of green from start to finish, just an easy day. But if you’re a fan, this is a very difficult race. There was just a lot that happened.

“People were shuffling forward and backwards. Restarts were bringing different action. The tires were bringing something different for people. It was possible to pass, like very much so. It raced really well.

“There was a lot of unknowns going into the new surface on how it would race. I think today, I don’t know how you could have asked for much better of a race. From that standpoint it was more stressful for us. Hopefully the fans really enjoyed the action of it.”