Palou clinches third IndyCar title as Herta passes O’Ward to win finale · RaceFans

Alex Palou secured his third IndyCar championship despite finishing a lap down in the season finale in Nashville.

Colton Herta scored his second victory of the year as the curtain fell on the 2024 IndyCar season by passing Pato O’Ward with five laps to go.

Any intrigue over the outcome of the championship ended after 12 of the 206 laps of Nashville Superspeedway. Will Power, the only driver mathematically capable of beating Palou to the title, had already dropped back five places when he arrived in the pits unexpectedly early.

Disastrously, the Penske driver’s seat belts had worked loose. His car sat in the pits for what felt like an eternity, and he eventually finished seven laps adrift.

Palou took 10th place, securing the title with relative ease. The Ganassi driver, who made his IndyCar debut in 2020, therefore successfully defended the title he won last year, becoming the first driver to win consecutive titles since Dario Franchitti in 2011. He has now won three of the last four IndyCar championships.

Kyle Kirkwood led the opening stages of the race, rebuffing the advances of Josef Newgarden. However Felix Rosenqvist behind them crashed out early on due to a deflating tyre, prompting a rush for the pits in which Kirkwood dropped back to 10th.

Two more caution periods, triggered by Katherine Legge and Marcus Ericsson respectively, transformed the battle for the lead of the race. David Malukas led into the closing laps, hoping to eke his fuel out in the event of a late caution period, to no avail.

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As he pitted, O’Ward moved into the lead of the race with Herta in hot pursuit. The Andretti driver was clearly the quicker of the two, but O’Ward skilfully manoeuvred his way through traffic to keep his rival boxed in.

He ran out of tricks when they bore down on Sting Ray Robb, however. The pair dived either side of the Foyt driver and Herta brilliantly captured the lead with shades of Mika Hakkinen’s 2000 Belgian Grand Prix-winning pass on Michael Schumacher, albeit this time with a McLaren driver on the receiving end.

Newgarden ended his season with third place after passing team mate Scott McLaughlin, who caught a snap of oversteer as the pair went side-by-side. Kirkwood separated them at the flag in fourth.

Santino Ferrucci took sixth after being ordered to relinquish a position for trespassing beneath the yellow line. Malukas, after his late pit stop, came in ninth behind Marcus Armstrong and Linus Lundqvist, while Conor Daly completed the top 10 after another solid turn for Juncos Hollinger.

Race result

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