Takeaways from IndyCar at The Thermal Club

If you missed the IndyCar Series’ visit to The Thermal Club over the weekend, here’s a quick look at the main takeaways from the 65-lap race.

WHO WON?

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing. It was the three-time IndyCar champion’s 13th career win (from 83 starts) and 34th podium. It also marked Honda’s second win of the year.

WAS IT A DOMINANT WIN?

It was not. Palou took the lead on the 56th lap, which he never relinquished, but polesitter Pato O’Ward was looking unbeatable while leading 51 of the first 55 laps.

WHAT WAS THE DECIDING FACTOR IN THE WIN?

Like the championship-opener at St. Petersburg, a tire strategy choice made before the race by the pole-winning team had a massive influence in how the victory was settled.

O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren team chose to use their lone set of new Firestone alternates to start the race, and he streaked away from the field as a result of having maximum grip and speed. McLaren teammate Christian Lundgaard also started on alternates, but it was a set that had been used in qualifying and they didn’t offer as much grip and speed for as long as O’Ward’s new alternates.

Eventual winner Palou also opened the race on used alternates, and joined Lundgaard in being unable to keep O’Ward within reach. At the first round of pit stops, O’Ward took a new set of the slower primary tires, and with no new alternates left, continued to take new primaries at his second and third stops.
Lundgaard’s first stop traded used alternates for his only set of new alternates, and matched O’Ward in going to new primaries on his second and third visits to the pits.

At Ganassi, having seen the performance advantage offered by new alternates — which lasted far longer than was predicted — race strategist Barry Wanser decided to save that set for the run to the checkered flag, doing the opposite of what McLaren chose with O’Ward.

Wanser’s strategy turned their day from a safe run to third behind the dominant duo of O’Ward and Lundgaard into the only thrilling aspect of the race. Palou sliced into Lundgaard’s gap and went side-by-side through multiple corners to take second, and with a pace advantage due to his tires — compounded by McLaren’s decision to use more radiator blockers than Ganassi, which reduced their ability to use full hybrid power — there was nothing O’Ward could do but watch his rival erase an 11s lead and streak away to win by 10.1s.

DID ANYBODY ELSE COME CLOSE TO VICTORY?

Just O’Ward, who was crestfallen to have led 78 percent of the race and find himself powerless to defend his lead against a driver on faster tires.

WHO STOOD OUT BEHIND THE PODIUM FINISHERS IN A POSITIVE LIGHT?

Many of the drivers who suffered misfortune at St. Petersburg and left the first race at the bottom of the championship had strong runs at Thermal and vaulted forward in the standings.

Team Penske’s Will Power was the only representative from the five-deep squad (three Penske drivers plus the two affiliates at Foyt) to have a stellar run in his charge from 21st to sixth. He improved from 26th in the championship to 14th. Meyer Shank Racing’s Marcus Armstrong hit the wall at St. Pete and finished 24th, but thanks to a great weekend by MSR across the board (teammate Felix Rosenqvist took fifth), Armstrong was able to secure seventh and climb to 15th in the standings.

With how the race played out, Rosenqvist and Armstrong were the second- and third-best Ganassi-affiliated cars, both coming home ahead of Scott Dixon in 10th and Kyffin Simpson in 15th.

Andretti Global’s Colton Herta was in a similar situation as Power and Armstrong, turning his 16th at St Petersburg into a strong fourth at Thermal to step into eighth in the championship.

Finally, he didn’t have a stellar finish in 17th-place, but coupled with his ninth at Race 1, Dale Coyne Racing’s Rinus VeeKay has earned 13th in the championship, meaning there are 14 drivers who are currently behind the Dutchman who had almost no time to settle into the team before the start of the season. It only gets harder from here, but VeeKay’s just four points shy of being in the top 10.

WHO DIDN’T STAND OUT BEHIND THE PODIUM FINISHERS?

Just as many of the bad-day-in-St.-Pete drivers left Thermal with smiles on their faces, some of the ‘misfortunate’ drivers (that’s an AJ Foyt-ism) from St. Pete had another rough day in the second race of the season.

Penske’s Josef Newgarden took third to open the year, but was part of the team’s weekend spent adrift as he had a poor qualifying run and placed a distant 13th. He dropped from third to seventh in the standings as a result. Teammate Scott McLaughlin had the worst IndyCar event of his career after a shocking fall to 25th in qualifying, getting tangled with and spun by Devlin DeFrancesco on the final parade lap (if you haven’t seen their argument, and don’t mind colorful language, pay a visit to social media and search for the video…), and had a massive energy recovery system issue that forced his No. 3 Chevy to lose many laps before retiring in 27th and last place.

Despite the last-place result, he’s only dropped to 10th in the championship.

After St. Pete, the front-running performances of Newgarden and McLaughlin stood in stark contrast to the unremarkable mid-pack runs by the Foyt team, which is in a technical alliance with Penske. Thermal saw both camps in similar territory, which speaks more to Penske missing the mark at the event and that info also impacting the Foyt team, but it doesn’t change the fact that Foyt’s Santino Ferrucci, a breakout star from 2024, has been largely absent from the action after placing 14th in each of the two opening races. Similar to McLaughlin, Ferrucci also had hybrid problems during the race.

New Penske-contracted teammate David Malukas took 13th at St. Pete and 18th at Thermal. Together, they sit 17th and 18th in the standings, which was by no means expected coming into 2025.

WERE THERE ANY MAJOR HIGHLIGHTS OR DRAMAS?

A number of drivers dealt with overheating hybrid units, and based on most of the reports, they fell heavily on the side of Chevy-powered teams. Some teams elected to use more radiator blockers than they should have, which contributed to the spike in hybrid temperatures and the shutting down of those units until they were sufficiently cooled.

Also, the FOX broadcast disappeared without warning during the middle portion of the race due to a circuit breaker failing in the TV compound. It, too, was suspected of overheating.