Palou Looks To Bounce Back At Road America

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — The NTT IndyCar Series makes its annual trek to Road America this weekend and it will be the fourth very different race track in the past four events for the series.

The scenic four-mile road course presents a combination of raw speed and tight corners, bringing a different challenge to competitors than previous weeks.

Last week the series ran at night on the 1.25-mile World Wide Technology Raceway oval, which followed the tight street circuit at the Detroit Grand Prix. Prior to Detroit was the Indianapolis 500 at the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Alex Palou has won five of the eight races this season and carries a 73-point lead to Road America, where he has been successful in the past.

“I think that’s what makes IndyCar so challenging,” Palou said. “You go from a really small track at Indy road course, then you go to a superspeedway, then you go to the bumpiest track that we have in the calendar with Detroit and very tight walls, and then you go to St. Louis which is a completely different track and now you go back to Road America, which it’s like going back to the circle of Indy road course.”

Palou said the challenges of racing at different types of tracks are mostly burdens to the team.

“Preparation-wise, I would say for the driver it’s not as hard as probably for the team, the mechanics, the engineers, getting the setup right and also building the car to, like, the different specs,” Palou noted. “But for the driver it’s just amazing that you get to focus on different places and different techniques of driving. It just keeps you sharp, keeps you studying a lot, and I enjoy that. I enjoy that part a lot.”

Palou heads to Road America after finishing eighth at WWTR and failing to finish in Detroit.

“We got used to too much success,” Palou said. “Not we as the team but everybody, and expects us to win every single weekend. It’s not possible, unfortunately.

Although Road America is a really good race weekend for us, I love that track, the car has been really good there, so hopefully we can go back there on Friday and practice and have already a good start of the weekend.”

Palou believes he and his team will improve as the season progresses.

“It’s the beauty of the sport that you can always get better at everything,” the three-time champion said. “You can always get better at going a little bit faster, getting more speed, just saving better the tires, saving more fuel, managing better how you are aggressive in defending or overtaking. There’s so much stuff that you can always be a little bit better that I think there’s no limit, and you can see that in amazing drivers like (Scott) Dixon, (Will) Power, these guys that have been around for so long, and I think Power said the past weekend that he’s been driving the best that he’s ever done.

“I believe in that, and I think that it’s the beauty of motorsports, that you can always keep on pushing yourself to try and be a little bit better.

“Where do I think I can get better? Well, everything. A little bit faster, hopefully better on short ovals, better on qualifying up front and defending moves or overtaking. I think there’s always stuff that you can improve on.”