“The beatings will continue. I can’t promise morale will improve.”
Let’s not forget good people, that there was an IndyCar race this weekend too, almost in direct competition with F1’s Miami Grand Prix and NASCAR in Texas. Yep, Round 4 of the IndyCar season had the field travel to Leeds, Alabama and Barber Motorsports Park. And what I thought was going to be a fight between the two best drivers in the series, two men who started their own legacies within Barber itself, it turned into an absolute beat-em-down for the reigning Champion, Alex Palou. Let’s get into it.
#SUPERBEATEMDOWN
In the red corner, Scott McLaughlin, arguably the best of the Penske’s so far this season, on a track they’ve dominated at in years past, home of his first career series win, and last year’s winner. In the blue corner, Alex Palou, winner in 2021, has never finished a Barber race outside of the Top 5 in his previous four starts.
I thought, especially after a front row by these two contenders, that this was going to be a prime heavyweight contest. What we got was Drederick Tatum vs Homer Simpson.
Alex Palou beat the field over his knees. It was over by Lap 10, given the Spaniard had already dropped a eight-second lead on Scott McLaughlin’s head. It gave him all the flexibility on strategy… not that he needed it because 20 laps in, he was going faster on his set of alternate tyres than Colton Herta was on his set of primaries. Herta came back at Palou a bit when the drivers swapped compounds for their second stints, but Palou was able to hit that crossover point earlier and pushed the gap back out to eight seconds. And then when Colton stalled in his grid box for his second stop, he dropped five spots and was out of contention.
In came the overcutting Christian Lundgaard for McLaren who inherited second by leapfrogging McLaughlin via the best pass IndyCar’s seen this season, an up and under switchback at the final corner, beautiful stuff. But none of this mattered in terms of a fight for the win, as Palou was up to 10 seconds clear. And after Lundgaard was caught behind Marcus Ericsson doing a brilliant Toronto 2023 tribute with his front wing, that gap ballooned out to 16 seconds, the biggest IndyCar win in two years.
The special HRC livery? Perfect. The pole lap? Perfect. The strategy? Perfect. Tyre-saving? Perfect. It’s as near to perfection as you’ll see in IndyCar, with 81 out of 90 laps led, an overcut on nearly the entire field, and now a vicegrip on the standings. Palou himself said it was probably the best drive of his career? I’m not the one arguing with him on that, he was flawless.
To put it into perspective, the story of the season so far, really should be Christian Lundgaard. The new McLaren driver showed promise at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, but not even me, one of his biggest fans from his ART days in F2, would imagine he’d walk into Pato O’Ward’s house and is currently stealing the Mexican’s lunch money. Barber was his third consecutive podium finish, four spots ahead of Pato and extending his advantage over his teammate to 28. His average finish on the year is exactly four, which in any other context would be clear championship frontrunner, as generally you want to be around 7 to be in the frame for the title. But he’s SIXTY points behind Palou after just four races, with that damn Spaniard having only dropped 20 points FOR THE SEASON.
Given how far back some of his biggest hitters are, the season could already be in jeopardy for some if they don’t win the 500:
Christian Lundgaard: -60
Kyle Kirkwood: -69
Pato O’Ward: -88
Scott McLaughlin: -91
Scott Dixon: -92
Colton Herta: -97
Will Power: -103
Josef Newgarden: -118
The Month of May is going to be really serious for a quarter of the field. If Palou has another even mid-500, they’re in serious trouble.
Ace In The Hole
There’s something else that’s been a growing concern for me as I’ve watched the 2025 IndyCar season… I don’t think we’ve had a “great” race this year yet. Now, this is just my subjective opinion, if you’ve found the season entertaining, then awesome! For me though, given I know what this series can be, I’m worried.
We’ve had teases of good stuff, like Newgarden vs Palou at St. Pete and the Kirkwood vs Palou matchup at Long Beach, but over the whole race, there were long dry periods where we had a lack of action. Same with Barber. Some of that is Palou’s dominance that can’t be helped, but the field itself threw up some interesting opinions, and the series has already responded.
Alex Rossi came out with an interesting take on his podcast “Off Track with Hinch and Rossi”, where he explained that drivers are only pushing to 85-90% because they’re having to conserve so much fuel to hit their number, and having to look after their tyres. The extra tyre management coming from the fact that with the hybrid supercapacitor that the cars have, they’re now around 40 kilos heavier, which is more of a burden on… just about everything, making the cars harder to drive. If what Rossi is saying is true, and drivers are conserving, they’re not going all-out and are less likely to make mistakes, like what Will Power did for that one caution we’ve had in 2025 so far.
Sarcastically Fun Fact: We’ve now gone three races, and 339 laps since the series last had a caution. Last time we had one, was the opening lap of the Championship in St. Pete. Last time we went three-straight without a yellow? 1986. For the record, I was born six years later.
Now, the series is clearly aware of the concerns and are trying to alleviate things. Remember, they’ve added laps to six races on the calendar (Like Long Beach), to try and make stints longer so you didn’t have teams doing massive fuel saves and try and add some action. There was also a push from Firestone to have greater disparity between the red/green alternate tyre and the black primary so you’d get greater swings in deltas and have more passing. And while we’re still well north of 100 passes on track a race, a lot of them are in the midfield. As Nathan Brown at the IndyStar pointed out, we’ve had 2 on-track passes for the lead on road and street courses since the hybrid was introduced.
IndyCar’s taking another step this weekend with the GP of Indy, making the race a mandatory 3-stopper, with the forcing of the teams having to do two black and two red tyre stints. The series thinks it’ll force the teams to go all-out and hence, have a better product. It’s mildly interesting to me, because the IndyGP has tended to be a black tyre race, so this could be a more aggressive strategy… but having everyone in the field running the same game barring the potential for a 4-stopper depending on degradation makes me fear that won’t make things any better. And if F1’s taught me anything – the placebo of zero tyre-deg races and the vibes that drivers are pushing doesn’t mean the race is any better to watch.
It hasn’t helped that the FOX partnership is not working so far. I sincerely appreciate that FOX and the series is going all out to try and bridge new markets and push the boundaries of what’s possible tech wise in the series, but it keeps spitting out problems. I’ve talked about the international feed suffering, but we’re still seeing timing towers be taken down for multiple laps at a time, in May. They tried implementing GPS live-timing during qualifying and at times, it didn’t work (It worked perfectly fine last year and prior).
We’re still struggling to tell the story of the race with only limited usage of push-to-pass and tyre compounds on screen. I love the graphic packages, but having a demo on IndyCar’s dashboard in the middle of the race is poor presentation. It can be so much better than this, and I was kind not to bring up the Thermal Club glitches until now. You’re a multi-billion dollar broadcaster who covers multiple Motorsport series.
To be optimistic, I think FOX will iron a lot of this out and in the long-run, this will work out. And heck, maybe the caution-less running is just an extreme outlier and it’ll balance out as the year goes on. But something isn’t right here and for IndyCar, the quality of its racing is normally its Ace in the Hole. Without that, what do we have here?
The Lightning Round
Terrifying Fun Fact: Alex Palou’s average finish since joining Chip Ganassi? FIVE POINT FOUR.
Rinus Veekay deserves some serious flowers. He’s driving the nuts off that Dale Coyne, and if it wasn’t for a delayed pitstop, he ends up on the podium. In a Dale Coyne. On a road course. With no strategic shenanigans. His second Top 10 in four races, and this one was fourth. The pay scene in North America nearly kept him off this grid. That should never happen again.
I’ve generally thought Will Buxton’s been very solid on FOX, but reading out Santino Ferrucci’s sponsor on air, and Townsend Bell glazing his save and comparing it to Colton Herta’s legendary one in the Indy GP rainfest? Sus. Very sus. The allegations are not being beaten here, especially for a man sitting 15th in the standings and without a Top 10 finish in 2025.
First weekend that Nolan Siegel looked like a McLaren driver. First Fast 6 appearance, and a Top 10 finish. Nice work. Needs more of that. Kyffin Simpson is starting to get there too, shame about the pitstop.
Marcus Ericsson needs help at Andretti, that boy is sinking fast over there. Nearly flipped his car over in practise and broke a wing during the race. Back-to-back years in the teens in the standings and I fear Andretti won’t be returning his calls for a new deal.
And finally – I NEED THAT ALEX PALOU HRC LIVERY. I NEED IT YESTERDAY. MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
The Verdict – 5/10 (Meh): Let me clear. This wasn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination, there was some solid midfield action that I’m glad FOX highlighted, and Lundgaard’s pass on McLaughlin alone was worth half a point. But this is the fourth middling IndyCar race to start the year. Something needs to give here. Let’s hope the Month of May brings it. See you next week.
