Alex Palou will be facing yet another grid penalty in this weekend’s IndyCar race from World Wide Technology Raceway, his third of the season.
The setback comes due to the points leader’s Honda engine failing on the Indianapolis road course, which knocked him out of the fourth position with less than 20 laps remaining.
A fresh motor this weekend comes earlier than the allowed distance, resulting in another grid penalty for the sophomore driver.
An added setback is that the penalty is nine places this weekend instead of the usual six on account of the race being held on an oval.
“It doesn’t help for sure,” said Palou on Friday. “It’s already 21 spots on qualifying. In a series like IndyCar where you always want to qualify one spot ahead, 21 spots is a full grid.
“It’s a lot of bad things that are happening to us, but we’re still in the lead. I think it hurts us more to not finish the race if we’re running P4 than a grid penalty.
“We just need to have a good race. Nine positions in 260 laps is not that much.”
IndyCar is running under a condensed schedule this weekend, with practice, qualifying, and the race all taking place on Saturday.
The one-day event means that drivers will not be able to sample the track under the lights until the race, making it difficult to set up the car properly.
Palou is happy to have veteran team-mates beside him, who are able to better predict the state of the track through years of experience.
“I think it’s going to be tough,” elaborated Palou. “I’m lucky enough to have Scott [Dixon] on my team, so I’ll let him decide a bit more on our race setup.
“Tomorrow’s about getting comfortable with the car as we did in Texas. Get a good balance so we know we can do long runs with it and be comfortable.
“Hopefully we can finish up high.” Practice for the Bommarito 500 takes place Saturday at noon, followed by qualifying in the afternoon. The 260-lap race begins at 7:30 PM Central Time.
