NTT INDYCAR SERIES: HONDA INDY 200 AT MID-OHIO

July 6, 2025

Christian Lundgaard

Alex Palou

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Joined by Alex Palou, who led 75 laps this afternoon, driver of the No. 10 OpenAI Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, the second runner-up finish of 2025, eighth podium of the season, 39th career, and joined by Christian Lundgaard who started second, came home third, driver of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, fourth podium of the season and seventh of his career.

Alex, big question: Turn 9, what happened?

ALEX PALOU: Big mistake, man. Big mistake. Yeah, nothing in particular happened. Just lost it a little bit. Then kind of got into the marbles and went out.

Yeah, lost everything there. It was a big, big mistake by my part. The car was on fire today. The team gave me, as well, the strategy, the pit stops we needed to win the race.

But yeah, man, it's not over until it's over, until you see the checkered flag. I was just trying to push. I was trying to open the gap a little bit more with Scott. I felt confident with the car.

Yeah, just lost it.

Q. You still were able to try to catch him and pass him the last couple laps, five or so to go. What did you do or not do?

ALEX PALOU: Trying to pass him you mean? Once I was second, I knew I had to be more fuel than him and a little bit more OT. I tried, but I couldn't really make it. I was starting to struggle on tires as well with the rears, so I couldn't really do the lines to avoid dirty air and so on, like in Turn 2. I tried. I tried. I think less than half a second to close.

Yeah, it was tough to pass for sure.

Q. Christian, another podium for you. Your thoughts on your day today?

CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Yeah, we saw Mr. Perfect here make a mistake. You don't see that very often. I think the day was pretty good. Alex seemed to have a little bit more pace than we did.

This morning I woke up kind of thinking it was going to be a two-stop race. I think obviously Dixon kind of proved that.

This morning, I think we showed that we were able to get the number that we needed with the pace, but again, you need the rest of the race to fall your way for that to work out, and we were unsure what Alex was going to do, and we decided to kind of follow him, and I think if we would have stayed with our gut, we could have potentially come away with a better result, but at the end of the day, we're on the podium.

I nearly went off the same lap, same corner as he did. I don't know what I was looking at, trying to see the 10 car. But yeah, still on the podium, so that's good.

Q. Alex, a legendary basketball coach once said losing hurts worse than winning feels good. Are you going to think about this one more than some of your victories this year?

ALEX PALOU: Yeah, for sure. I agree with that. I think when you lose -- I think we lost today. It's not like we got beaten, but we lost it, myself. Yeah, that's going to hurt a little bit.

I'm hopefully going to learn from that. It's still good in a way that we got one-two; we lost it but we kept it in the team. I think that's going to keep the team happier and Chip happier.

But yeah, for sure it hurts, man. It hurts doing a big mistake like that when you could have just -- it's easy now to just say, save a little bit there, you don't need to be on the limit. But when you're driving, you don't feel like you're that in the limit.

Yeah, it'll take a couple of hours, but then at the end of the day we still finished second, still had an amazing weekend, and we should be proud about that.

Q. The irony is you gained about 30 points or whatever on your points lead and it's now up to 113. Not that many races left in the season.

ALEX PALOU: Yeah, I mean, that's why probably it's not going to take two days to recover. It's going to take just a couple of hours.

Yeah, it's still an amazing result, finishing second, running up front, and overall if you sum up all the weekend, leading 75 laps, getting the pole and just running really, really fast all weekend, it's been amazing and extending the points lead, as well. But yeah, still, we lost the race there.

Q. (Indiscernible) Turn 12 compared to (indiscernible) entering the stretch of 13, the rumble strip, both of your right tires were really reaching out there. I didn't notice any other car in the field doing that. 12, 13 you all were mirroring each other; were you aware of that behavior in 12 and 13?

ALEX PALOU: No.

CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: No.

Q. I'll show you pictures.

ALEX PALOU: Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that means that we were both pushing.

CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Yeah, we still lost.

Q. Alex, we were talking on Friday and you said that because you're so far ahead in the championship, you feel like you can be a little bit riskier. Was today an example of that where you were just pushing a little bit harder because you know you have that wiggle room?

ALEX PALOU: Yes and no. Maybe on strategy, yes. On driving, no. That was not just me trying to get faster laps or anything else. It was just being too close to the limit, and there was no need for that, and getting big consequences.

But yeah, on strategy-wise, yeah, I think we could have run a safer strategy. It was just to do the two-stopper, try and slow down everybody out, and kind of put everybody on the two-stop strategy and just skip track position. That would have been I would say a lot safer, but we knew we had the fast car. We knew we thought we could win on a three-stop strategy, and that's the kind of aggressiveness that we're able to take.

Q. After the incident, it looked like it could have been one of those times where you fell off the track completely. Talk about your recovery and only losing one position when you easily could have lost more.

ALEX PALOU: Yeah, the issue was the marbles, getting into the marbles, then I had it felt like ice, and then I got into the curb and I couldn't get out of the curb and the RPM dropped a lot and I didn't have any power at all. I was full throttle, but it was just going so slow.

Yeah, it could have been a lot worse. I could have ended up on the tires real easily, and the tires are not very far away from the curb in that corner.

Yeah, all in all, it was a good save. I can say instead of a mistake, it was a good save. Yeah, I'll take it that way. It was a good save.

Q. Christian, do you feel like things are really clicking now? We talked about yesterday halfway through your being able to show your potential, which I think we saw with the other team and maybe it was a little bit behind where you thought you should be. Do you feel like now we're ready for the -- Iowa coming up next week, somewhere you've been fast but the results haven't been there?

CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Yeah, I think you look at Indy Road Course, we were one of the fastest cars. We missed the pit out commit line, had a drive through, the results gone. Road America we were on the same strategy as Felix but ahead of him and he finished second.

So clearly I think the pace has been there and the results were going to be there. We've made some silly mistakes. So I think this weekend it's just nice to have it on paper and stack up those points.

But I think going into Iowa next weekend, it's going to be all about qualifying, and I think the two of us here can kind of agree on that, and I think both of us will agree on that. It's about having a good qualifying car and just being fast enough in the race and obviously score as many points as possible during those two races in Iowa.

Q. Christian, because you're on a different team and because that race has a different sponsor this is going to be your first trip to Iowa where you've got plenty of free time to do stuff instead of sponsor appearances --

CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Let's see. Let's see.

Q. But that's got to be a unique thing for you to not be the face of that race?

CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD: Yeah, I made the mistake once of winning the race before that weekend. That didn't help my freedom, I would say. But I would say going back, I think all of us at least used to like the racing. I don't know about you, but at least before they repaved it, I thought the racing was quite awesome, and I think after the repave, I think it's a lot more just single-file racing, and I think we would prefer some more double-lane racing in that sense.

ALEX PALOU: I hope so, yeah, but I think it's going to be single file unless something changes.