Alex Palou has added another jewel to his IndyCar resume, winning on the streets of Long Beach for the first time and reclaiming the NTT IndyCar Series championship lead in the process.
The Chip Ganassi Racing Spaniard led 32 laps and wheeled his #10 Honda to victory by 4.198 seconds over teammate Felix Rosenqvist, with six-time champion Scott Dixon completing a Ganassi 1-2-3 from — by his own car's standards — an implausibly deep starting spot.
"Po had lost the championship lead earlier in the season, and the Spaniard clearly took that personally," the race's post-event Comedy Review observed. "Recording his first win at Long Beach, and snatching said championship lead back again."
The Sunday afternoon victory was the third of Palou's 2026 campaign and restored a points buffer he had surrendered during the early road-course races. It was also a welcome restorative for a hybrid-era IndyCar product that has struggled for the on-track fireworks the series once prided itself on.
That concern shadowed the whole weekend. Qualifying brought out a returning single-lap Q3 format — tested successfully at Arlington — in the hope of driving Saturday broadcast numbers, but the race itself once again featured minimal passing for position at the front. "This does appear to have become a bit of a recurring theme since the hybrid's introduction a couple of years back," FP1Will's Comedy Review noted in a line that echoed widely across fan channels. "Whether that's a coincidence or not, I'm not sure, but I'm starting to get the feeling it's something the series need to look at going forward."
Drama still surfaced in places. Rookie Mick Schumacher's weekend was effectively over in first practice after a crash in the opening minutes. Scott McLaughlin carried a never-before-seen AAA livery to race day, with Ed Carpenter Racing leaning into a 2005 Renault F1 tribute livery as one of several fresh liveries around the pit lane. Stingray Robb had the unhappy distinction of appearing in a Fox multi-angle montage for being slowest of the cars that set a meaningful lap time.
Mid-race, Will Power's day unravelled when he collected an AJ Foyt Racing mechanic during a pit-lane clash that sent the #26 to the back of the field. Luca Malucas fizzed a late stint that had him climbing up the order, only to run into one corner too many. And through it all, Palou kept the #10 Honda metronomic at the front.
News from off-track continued to swirl. Jacob Abel jokes have returned as the American looks set to try to qualify for the Indy 500 in May. Colton Herta's entry for a clashing Formula 2 round in Canada was cancelled as the American commits to his new European programme. And in a story Palou himself will appreciate, Will Power's father was reported to have wrestled an armed intruder to the ground earlier in the week — "the most Will Power thing I've heard all week," the Comedy Review quipped.
IndyCar now heads into the build-up to the Month of May at Indianapolis. On current form, Palou will enter the Brickyard as the hunted once again.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/palou-powers-to-first-long-beach-win-to-reclaim-indycar-championship-lead). Visit for full coverage.*
