Palou: “We have 200 laps to overtake 13 cars, we can do it calmly”

Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi), double IndyCar champion, assured this Thursday that even his car was not the fastest on the grid in Indianapolis 500believes that he will be more competitive in the race compared to what was seen in the classifications and that calmness is necessary, because his team will have “200 laps to overtake the thirteen cars.”

Palou, the 2022 and 2024 IndyCar champion, will start on the fifth row this Sunday in the Indy 500, in fourteenth place, and acknowledged that Chip Ganassi still has work to do in the final hours before the race, in a press conference organized at the media day in Indianapolis.

“No need to be negative either, we were fourteenth out of 33 cars. In the last three years we had a faster car and we didn’t win, maybe this time with a more normal car it will be our year,” said Palou.

“The race car is better than qualifying and We had 200 laps to catch the thirteen cars. If we take it easy, we can do it” he added.

Palou approached the Indy 500 with optimism and emphasized that last year’s winner, Josef Newgarden, was victorious despite his return to the grid (seventeenth).

“Maybe there is that feeling (that Chip Ganassi lacks speed) because two years ago we had five cars in the ‘fast-9’. We obviously lost, we didn’t have any car in the top-10. I think we lost more in the classification rather than the race,” he said.

“It was not an easy day in qualifying. Scott Dixon had to change engines, I couldn’t get out for the second attempt. I agree that we lost a bit, but we are not that far in the race. “We came out fourteenth, and last year’s winner was further,” he added.

Palou also reckoned that every car that reached the final lap in the race would have a chance to win.

The Indy 500 takes place this Sunday with Scott McLaughlin on the pole and a front row with three Team Penske drivers.