How Pato O’Ward edged Alex Palou for first on-track win in nearly two years at Mid-Ohio
LEXINGTON, Ohio – Just 17 days short of two years from last taking the checkered flag first at Iowa Speedway, Pato O’Ward triumphed on-track – and did so by out-driving the best team and driver in the IndyCar Series.
On the debut day of IndyCar’s hybrid era, the Arrow McLaren driver chipped away at pole-sitter and championship leader Alex Palou’s early dominant lead Sunday afternoon at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course before making a race-winning pass on Lap 56 as the CGR driver pulled out of the pits after making his final stop.
Despite intense pressure over the closing stretch from the two-time champ, Arrow McLaren’s O’Ward held off Palou and edged him to the checkered flag by 0.4993 seconds for both he and his team’s first win on-track since July 24, 2022.
Race recap: Pato O'Ward holds off Alex Palou, final results IndyCar Honda Indy 200
Here’s how O’Ward did it:
Alex Palou takes big lead early
After securing his third pole of the season by the tightest margin in IndyCar’s Fast 6 qualifying era on road and street courses (since 2005), Palou ran away from the field early Sunday afternoon, looking for back-to-back wins at the track he’s never finished off the podium at since joining CGR.
With the actual start to the race coming on Lap 3, due to Scott Dixon’s mechanical failure that left him stalled multiple times on the parade laps, Palou wasted little time on creating a sizable gap. By Lap 10, Palou led O’Ward by 3.4 seconds and already had put nearly 6 seconds on 3rd-place starter David Malukas and nearly 7 on 4th-place Colton Herta,
By Lap 25, just before the leaders pitted, that lead of Palou’s on 2nd-place stood at 6.3 seconds.
Pato O’Ward takes lead out of pits
Palou maintained that cushion through the front two drivers’ first round of stops, leading O’Ward by 5.5 seconds on Lap 32, but it was then that O’Ward – despite running the same black-red-black tire strategy as Palou during the race – consistently ate into the polesitter’s lead.
The leader began to carve his way around lapped traffic on Lap 38, but on Lap 40, he led O’Ward by just 4.2 seconds at the race’s halfway point. Eight laps later, Pato had shaved off one second, and by Lap 50, the No. 5 Chevy driver trailed the lead by just 2.4 seconds. Two laps later, O’Ward was within just 1.1 seconds of Palou and then on that lap cut within a second off the back of the No. 10.
Before he could make the pass. O’Ward’s team called him in for his final stop on Lap 54 while within a half-second of Palou, but after the Ganassi driver came in the following lap, he trundled out of pitlane and saw the papaya-clad No. 5 zoom on by just seconds later.
Teammate, hybrid engine help O’Ward hang on to win
Over the final 25 laps, O’Ward could never wholly shake off the current IndyCar points leader, only periodically gapping him by 1.4 seconds. But with slow traffic ahead for much of the closing stint – including Palou’s CGR teammate Kyffin Simpson running at the end of the lead lap – O’Ward managed to use both his bank of push-to-pass and extra hybrid energy to keep Palou from getting any potential impactful runs.
Twice, too, Palou dropped a pair of wheels off-track, losing a couple tenths of a second on the leader each time.
O’Ward’s only moment of vulnerability was a touch of wheel spin coming out of the final corner on the final lap of the race, but he managed to gather himself and charge to the checkered flag.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pato O’Ward nips Alex Palou in first IndyCar hybrid engine race
