Alex Palou (10) en route to victory at the Detroit Street Circuit Sunday. (Paul Hurley/Penske Entertainment photo)

By Thomas Hughes, SWN Staff Writer

DETROIT (May 31, 2026) – What do the shark from the 1975 movie “Jaws” and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou have in common?

They both give everyone else the same warning. Once the fin shows up, it is usually too late.

Palou entered the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix with the look of a driver who had already separated himself from the rest of the NTT IndyCar Series field. By Sunday afternoon, he had done more than reinforce it. 

He won from pole, led the most laps, posted the race’s fastest lap and crossed the line 3.058 seconds ahead of Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood to earn his fourth victory of the season in just eight races.

It’s the 23rd win of Palou’s standout Indy car career in just 106 starts.

“It feels great to be back here on Victory Lane,” Palou said. “I think last year or the past couple years, we were not that strong on street courses, and this year, we've been able to win at three street courses. Yeah, it just feels incredible.”

Palou rarely, if ever, looked rattled for long.

Even when Andretti Global’s Will Power moved past him early, or Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard slipped by during the first stint, or cautions kept him from running away from the race, the championship leader kept finding his way back to the front.

By the end, Detroit belonged to him again for the first time since the 2023 season.

Palou’s win pushed him to 274 points across the first nine races, extending his championship lead to 38 over Team Penske’s David Malukas and 50 points over Kirkwood.

“They’re fast,” Kirkwood said of Palou and his team. “They’re a good team, and he’s a phenomenal driver. It’s kind of expected. They’ve struggled at street courses in recent years, and they don’t now. They’re clearly one of the best, and they're a group that we're trying to catch up to now, almost, on street courses.”

Palou’s early-season strength has turned the title race into a weekly chase of the No. 10 car for another season, but the opening laps suggested the race might not be as straightforward as qualifying made it appear.

Palou held the lead from pole on the opening lap, but McLaughlin quickly jumped Power for second.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen brought out the first caution on lap 10 after hitting the wall and stopping on track. On the lap-15 restart, Palou, McLaughlin, and Power held the top three spots, while Santino Ferrucci had already climbed from 22nd to 15th.

Power then made the first major move of the race when, on lap 17, he passed McLaughlin for second and then took the lead from Palou. For a stretch, Team Penske looked positioned to control the afternoon.

By lap 33, as Palou tried to work back around Power, McLaughlin and Lundgaard also moved past the Spaniard, dropping him to fourth.

Palou and Kirkwood both gained ground through the pit sequence, and by a lap-45 restart, Palou was back out front with Kirkwood behind him. McLaughlin ran third, with Lundgaard in fourth.

From there, Palou began to rebuild the race.

It looked like the race was settling into a cleaner final stretch, but Detroit had other plans. The second half turned into the familiar street-course rhythm: caution, restart, contact, caution.

Kirkwood assumed his first lead of the race on Lap 64, but two laps later, Ferrucci ran into the back of Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Rinus VeeKay, a sequence that triggered another yellow.

Both continued in the race, but the caution disrupted several strategies.

Not only did that throw a wrench into Kirkwood’s race because he hadn’t yet pitted and Palou had already, Alexander Rossi – who’d assumed second place on pit strategy – was forced into the pits under caution and later received a 15-second drive-through penalty for entering while pit lane was closed.

Around the same sequence, Scott Dixon’s day unraveled with a hybrid issue, ending what had started as a promising race from fourth on the grid.

The lap-73 restart created another mess. Palou led the field away, while Rossi – still needing to serve his penalty – and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Mick Schumacher ran behind him.

Schumacher and Malukas then found the barriers at turn five, bringing out another caution and taking two cars that had been running inside the top 10 out of the picture.

That sequence proved costly for Malukas, who finished 18th after starting last in Detroit. It also prevented him from keeping pace with Palou in the championship fight, turning a difficult weekend into a damaging one.

Kirkwood, meanwhile, kept himself in contention. But after the lap-77 restart, Palou stretched the lead to nearly two seconds by the end of the lap. Graham Rahal also surged through the chaos, gaining seven positions into fifth.

Another caution came two laps later when Ferrucci stopped on track. The same stretch also featured contact between McLaughlin and Power while the two battled near the front, sending Power to the pits and ending his hopes of converting a front-row start into a strong result. Power finished 22nd.

The final caution arrived on lap 91 after Rossi ran into the back of Romain Grosjean. That set up a seven-to-go restart with Palou leading Kirkwood and Rahal.

It was the last real test Palou had to pass, and he did it without much drama.

Palou pulled away cleanly and quickly and finished off the 100-lap race, with Kirkwood second and Rahal – who was operating with no Push-to-Pass at the end of the race – third.

Pato O’Ward finished fourth for Arrow McLaren, his teammate Lundgaard came home fifth, and Indianapolis 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing took sixth.

RLL’s Louis Foster, Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyffin Simpson and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden rounded out the top 10.

Newgarden’s 10th-place finish was particularly notable, arriving after a difficult race physically as he continued to deal with a foot injury from Indianapolis. Afterward, he said that if Team Penske wanted to win the race, it should have put Felipe Nasr in the car instead.

Rahal’s third-place run was quieter but significant. It marked his third podium of the season and gave Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing another strong result in a year where Rahal has consistently placed himself in the right spots.

Still, every storyline eventually came back to Palou, who led 71 of the race’s 100 laps.

“Today, it’s not like he blew anybody’s doors off, but he does everything extremely well,” Rahal said. 

Palou himself isn’t satisfied though. The team wasn’t head-and-shoulders above the pack Sunday, but as is typical of Palou’s unrelenting nature, he was there anyway and ready to capitalize.

“You can see that it’s very tough to win races,” he said. “I wish we were in a league of our own, but we struggled a lot. Like we have to work so much, and everybody in the team has to work so much to be here [in victory lane].”

IndyCar next travels to Madison, Ill., for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway on Sunday, June 7. The race will begin at 9 p.m. ET, with coverage available on FOX, the IndyCar Radio Network, and SiriusXM IndyCar Nation, channel 218.

The results:

Race (100 laps): 1. 10-Alex Palou, 2. 27-Kyle Kirkwood, 3. 15-Graham Rahal, 4. 5-Pato O’Ward, 5. 7-Christian Lundgaard, 6. 60-Felix Rosenqvist, 7. 45-Louis Foster, 8. 28-Marcus Ericsson, 9. 8-Kyffin Simpson, 10. 2-Josef Newgarden, 11. 66-Marcus Armstrong, 12. 76-Rinus VeeKay, 13. 19-Dennis Hauger, 14. 77-Sting Ray Robb, 15. 6-Nolan Siegel, 16. 4-Caio Collet, 17. 20-Alexander Rossi, 18. 12-David Malukas, 19. 3-Scott McLaughlin, 20. 18-Romain Grosjean, 21. 47-Mick Schumacher, 22. 26-Will Power, 23. 14-Santino Ferrucci, 24. 9-Scott Dixon, 25. 21-Christian Rasmussen.