They all jumped alarms when, less than two hours before the end of the first practice session of the Indy 500 2026, the champion’s car, Alex Palourushed into the pits with a worrying message from the pilot on the radio: “I think there is something broken on the rear right side.
The first day, which is normally dedicated to checking that everything in the car is in its place and build the pilot’s confidence (in his case all this should be much simpler since drive the champion car and, theoretically, with one of the best – if not the best – base set up) suddenly went wrong when resounded that ‘something has broken’.
No car breakdowns
Immediately the team Ganassi took the car to the garage and for more than an hour he was thoroughly checking it to see if the pilot’s feeling was reflected in some specific breakdown… but it wasn’t like that.
Fortunately, The Spaniard was able to return to the track with 12 minutes remaining (in the penultimate position of the speed table)… and go to the motorhome with much better sensations. The Catalan joined the track in the middle of a group that was riding in traffic and He immediately began to overtake, making it clear that he was confident that the team had solved the problem.…although it was not a fault.
In fact… he allowed himself the luxury of, in just a few minutes, set the best lap of the day with an average of 225.937 miles per hour. Making it look easy. “The car is fine now, we had a couple of problems, but we solved it. It was more about balance, I wasn’t happy with how it felt“explained the Spaniard, who had just turned the sensations of the first day inside out like a sock.
“It was nothing mechanicalbut we found something that explained my feeling and it is good to have been able to go out on the track and regain confidence“, explained the Current winner of the 500 Mileswhich was reunited with its winning 2025 chassis, a year later: “It was important to see how I felt with the car, which is not the same one I used in the test (in those tests two weeks ago), and it’s been good to see that everything is fine.
Results of Practice I
Indy 500 2025
- Alex Palou (Ganassi) – 225.937 mph.
- Marcus Armstrong (Meyer Shank) – 225.895 mph.
- Conor Daly (Dreyer and Reinbold) – 225.838 mph.
- Joseph Newgarden (Penske) – 225.121 mph.
- Scott Dixon (Ganassi) – 225.087 mph.
- Graham Rahal (RLLR) – 224.769 mph
- Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti) – 224.483 mph
- Scott McLaughlin (Penske) – 224.401 mph
- Romain Grosjean (Dale Coyne) – 223.901 mph.
- David Malukas (Penske) – 223.845 mph.
Good feelings at the end
First small scare overcome… and, furthermore, also giving a scare to the rest. Another one, because He already impressed in the previous test when, in a tremendous show of confidence, he launched straight into making… a classification simulation.
And more good news… second place in the ‘Ganassi B’ of Marcus Armstrong and fifth place for Scott Dixon. And now with names that will have to be the protagonists as the week progresses further: newgarden (winner in 2023 and 2024), daly (the place that is always in the ointment), McLaughlin (which has pending accounts after last year’s mistake)… and also Kyle KirkwoodPalou’s rival for the championship.
Precisely the Kirkwood team, Andretti, has been the most prominent in the no-tow-speedthe turns without slipstreamwhose records are those that these first days are taken as a reference for the classification. Today the Andretti team has placed its three cars (Kirkwood 1st, Power 2nd and Ericsson 4th)…while Palou was 16th.