IndyCar’s Palou Wins for Third Time in Five RacesTravis HinkleIt was a small, U-shaped piece of carbon fiber, a piece not much bigger than a man’s fist, that fell from someone’s race car on Lap 57 of Sunday’s iconic 90-lap NTT IndyCar Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.That brought out the pivotal caution period and triggered a flurry of activity on pit road that saw second-place-running Alex Palou pounce on the opportunity to beat polesitter and race dominator Felix Rosenqvist back onto the track.Palou was on cruise control after that, fending off Meyer Shank Racing’s Rosenqvist to claim his first victory on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile temporary Southern California street course but his third out of five series events in hand.Scott Dixon, Palou’s Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) teammate and two-time Long Beach winner (2015, 2024), was third for the third time here, recording his first podium finish of the season.“It’s huge,” Palou said of his 22nd overall victory in 103 starts (which ties him with Emerson Fittipaldi and Tony Bettenhausen on the all-time list) and CGR its 148th. “It was that yellow.

It was that pit stop.”Chris OwensEarlier in the weekend, Alexander Rossi—a back-to-back winner from the pole in 2018-19—had said that one thing surprised him so far this year: that Palou had only two victories. Palou asked if Rossi was serious when he said that. Told absolutely yes, Palou downplayed that and said Rossi “has still got 14 more chances.

The guy goes into every week being able to win.”Then he said Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood, from who he grabbed the points lead Sunday, “was already at this space last year. He’s not suddenly closer. He was already saying hello last year.

So I feel everybody’s close.” But just when Rosenqvist threatened to insert himself and Meyer Shank Racing into the title conversation, after 177.12 miles and 51 laps led, he simply was the latest to have Palou disappoint him.Rosenqvist said afterward, “Little bit of a bittersweet race. I’m not sure why we lost a little bit in the stop. But Alex is obviously going to be 10 out of 10 every stop.

So I don’t necessarily feel ours was slow. Anyway, that’s how it goes. At the end of the day, we’re going to celebrate this P2—lots of points, podium.

That’s where I want to be. I had a really good race, particularly on the reds. The first two stints we seemed to make them last while keeping good pace.

I don’t think we necessarily had a bad stop, maybe Alex just had a faster stop with an easy out. Tough start to the year. I wanted to come here and bounce back.

But of course, I’m happy with a podium. Great job by the whole crew and hope we can take that momentum into May.”Still, Palou has insisted, “I think it’s tough to win. It’s so tough to win.

I’ve been winning two races out of four—50 percent. I think it’s pretty cool. I’m happy with that. There’s been years where I’ve won no races or won a race or two and you win the championships.

So winning two already, it’s great.”Now he has won three of the past five trophies and since the start of last season, he has won 11 of 22—50 percent again. And since 2021, he has finished on the podium 52.2 percent of the time.Perhaps his secret is that he never believes he is running roughshod over the competition. He said before Friday’s practice that he thinks a strong number of his rivals have closed the gap.

“I mean, it’s everybody. It’s not one person,” he said.Travis Hinkle“We’re working hard to try and just to be to the level of being able to win every race, but that is not a reality. And it’s still a work in progress.

We’re behind. We’re behind on everything, because it’s taken us a while to kind of get into the development where it had to have been. But I know we’re all working hard.

Days have been long. The analysis has been very in depth of where we’ve gone wrong, when we have. And for us, really it’s just trying to minimize damage when it’s bad.

And I think the next step after we do that, then it’s like, ‘Okay, how can we win every single race?’”That obsession has earned him four series championships, an Indianapolis 500 victory he’s about to try to repeat next month, and finally an Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach triumph.Palou said the feeling Sunday is “incredible. Feel so, so lucky with the opportunity I had to win the 500 last year, the Long Beach GP this year. It just feels like I'm living on this amazing cloud of happiness.”Rosenqvist, the fifth polesitter in as many races, was seeking to become the third to win here from the pole position (after Rossi in 2018-19 and Kirkwood in 2023 and 2025).

He came 4.198 seconds short Sunday.Five of Kirkwood’s career six victories have come on street courses—including this one at Long Beach—but he heads to the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the May 9 Sonsio Grand Prix with a chance to extend that and erase Palou’s 17-point advantage in the standings with the marquee Indianapolis 500 looming May 24. He was fourth and Pato O’Ward fifth.Arrow McLar