The Spaniard was in pursuit early on after faltering away his start from pole, but regained the advantage with an overcut pit strategy on the second series of pit stops that propelled him into the lead on lap 45 of 85.
However, a restart on lap 68 left Palou with the daunting task of fending off Team Penske’s Will Power heading down the wide Turn 1 of Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 14-turn, 2.439-mile course.
“Yeah, he got a really good restart,” said Palou, the reigning and two-time IndyCar Series champion.
“He had a shorter first gear than we did, so his jump was actually a little bit better than mine, and on top of that, he had my tow. I just saw it coming, and I had to defend. I didn’t want to give the lead back.
“I thought it was the best thing that we could have done at that moment.”
Palou also noted how the racing line heading into the corner was slippery, which was a similar feeling that also impacted him losing the lead at the start of the race.
“Yes, especially with all the pickup that we had that late into the race,” said Palou, who led a race-high 39 laps.
“Even at the beginning, at the start, I got some pickup that probably didn’t help with my braking. Yeah, I got a ton of pickup and it actually took me until Turn 7 to take everything out from the front right.”
The new points leader
By virtue of scoring his first points-paying race of the season, Palou took over the championship lead and now holds a 12-points advantage of Power.
When asked by Motorsport.com during the post-race press conference if he feels like he and the team have taken a step forward from their championship form from last year, Palou grinned and provided some thoughts.
“According to them (his team), every time I ask, they took it to the next level,” Palou said.
“Hopefully we can have a little bit more speed from the car. They’ve been working really, really hard, and even myself that doesn’t really understand too much about mechanics, I can see the differences on the car.
“Having that said, I think a lot of people caught and made big steps as we saw in the testing that we had a couple of months ago. Yeah, focusing on us, we did a lot of work, and I think that we’ll have faster cars, but at the same time, I think there’s other teams that will catch up.”