IndyCar title flips as Alex Palou stalls before start of Sunday Milwaukee race
WEST ALLIS, Wisc. – IndyCar’s championship race was turned on its head Sunday afternoon as points-leader Alex Palou’s No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda stalled on the pace laps ahead of Race 2 of the Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250s doubleheader weekend with what NBC pit reporter Dillon Welch reported was an issue with a 12-volt battery in the No. 10.
Slated to start 10th, Palou’s car stalled on the front stretch, and the start of the 250-lap race came under caution as the AMR Safety Team tended to the No. 10 and eventually pushed it back to the pits for additional service.
IndyCar results: IndyCar Series at Milwaukee for Race 2 of Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250 live updates
When the field readied for the throw of the green flag at the end of Lap 5 with polesitter Josef Newgarden leading the field, race control threw another caution because the rear of the field was not packed up in its proper, tight, ‘two cars per row’ format, but that message did not properly make its way through the field, as Chip Ganassi Racing’s Linus Lundqvist, who was starting 5th on the inside of Row 3, sped up for an expected restart and ran into the back of his CGR teammate Marcus Armstrong one row ahead, who then sailed into the back of Newgarden – ending the Team Penske driver’s day.
Live blog: IndyCar at Milwaukee for Race 2 of Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250 updates
The race finally restarted in earnest at the end of Lap 17. Palou climbed back into the cockpit of his No. 10 while the rest of the field was running on Lap 24, after his CGR crew replaced a 12-volt battery and saw the car restart without issue, and he returned on-track by Lap 29, 28 laps down.
On Lap 44, championship contender Will Power, who entered Sunday’s race 43 points down to Palou after chipping off 11 points of Palou’s cushion before the weekend and who started Sunday’s race 4th, took the lead of the race from Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin. With that lead, IndyCar’s ‘points as they run’ tracker has Power holding a three-point championship lead if the race were to finish as-is.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar points leader Alex Palou stalls before start of Milwaukee race
