IndyCar dominator Alex Palou converted pole into a comfortable win at Laguna Seca to draw closer to his fourth title in the series.
The Chip Ganassi driver was the class of the field again, leading 84 of 95 laps, surging past Nolan Siegel on an alternate strategy early and never looked back, becoming the first IndyCar competitor to win eight races in a single season since 2007.
With the win and O’Ward finishing fourth, Palou extended his championship advantage to 121 points with just three races remaining.
“What an amazing job by everybody at CGR, Honda, DHL, for giving us everything we needed to be as fast as we were,” Palou said. “It’s been an awesome weekend, awesome year overall. But today was something else.
“Super fun to be here. [It’s] one of my favourite tracks, for sure. I couldn’t be happier right now.”
Christian Lundgaard followed in second, pitting earlier than his rivals and using the undercut to rise up from seventh place, but couldn’t take advantage of two late cautions to make moves on Palou, ending up 3.7965 seconds behind the Spaniard.
Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Lumen via Getty Images
Colton Herta wrapped up the podium in third for Andretti, with Arrow McLaren’s O’Ward in fourth and Scott Dixon parlaying another off-sequence, fuel-saving strategy to fifth from 19th for Chip Ganassi.
Sunday’s race brought early drama, with one caution-free incident on lap 1 and another that did bring out the yellow when Kyffin Simpson and Felix Rosenqvist crashed into the tyre barrier at Turn 6.
Another caution flew just 10 laps later when Jacob Abel crashed alone with brake issues at Turn 2.
That set the stage for what many expected to be an attrition-filled race, but it didn’t ultimately come to fruition. A caution flew when Rinus VeeKay was trapped in the Turn 3 runoff after a misjudged lunge from Kyle Kirkwood, but the race proceeded trouble-free running through the pit sequences.
Two late cautions added late intrigue, but there were minimal shifts over the final laps, as only Marcus Ericsson, Abel and Simpson failed to reach the chequered flag.
The IndyCar field will return to action at Portland on 10 August, which is the final road course race of the 2025 season.
IndyCar Laguna Seca – Race results
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