F1Weekly Podcast # 1150

ON TODAYS PROGRAM…

 

PALOU WINS IN DETROIT!!!…SCHUMACHER P21 

IS TOTO HAVING FANTASIES OF A KIMI AND MAX SUPER TEAM FOR THEIR SUPER CAR!

WOULD THE TIFOSI WEAR ORANGE TO HELP FERRARI GET MAX?

ZACK BROWN TOOK LANDO NORRIS TO THE SPEEDWAY THE DAY AFTER THE 500 LARGEST MOTORSPORTS SPECTACLE IN THE WORLD

AND…FERNANDO SAYS: I WILL ATTEMPT THE INDIANAPOLIS 500 ONE MORE TIME!….mention MAX and competition.

 

THIS WEEK’S NASIR HAMEED CORNER WE HAVE: A MOMENT IN MOTORSPORTS HISTORY WITH CIAO COLLET FROM 2023 WHO CRASHED IN THE INDY 500 WITH 8 LAPS TO GO!! AND A LITTLE HISTORY ON THE MICHELIN TYRE!! 

Palou Prevails Amid Chaos,
Varying Tire Strategies in Detroit.

DETROIT (Sunday, May 31, 2026) – Four-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion Alex Palou prevailed in a full-contact race filled with various tire strategies, winning the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear on Sunday for his fourth victory in eight races this season.

Pole sitter Palou drove his No. 10 HRC Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to a 3.0584-second victory over the No. 27 Sam's Club Honda of Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood. It was the 23rd victory of Palou’s career in 106 starts, a remarkable strike rate of 21.7 percent, and he has won 12 of the last 25 races (48 percent win rate) dating to the start of the 2025 season.

SEE: Race Results

“It feels like the first time, honestly” Palou said. “It was a tough one, a very tough one. But the team did an incredible job once again with the strategy. The pit stops were incredible. Incredible run, incredible start of the year, but it was tough.”

The victory extended Palou’s championship lead to 62 points over Kirkwood, more than a race’s worth of margin. The Spaniard is aiming for an INDYCAR SERIES record-tying fourth straight title.

Graham Rahal finished third in the No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, his third podium finish of the season.

Arrow McLaren teammates Pato O'Ward and Christian Lundgaard finished fourth and fifth in the No. 5 and No. 7 Chevrolet-powered cars, respectively, at General Motors’ home event.

Palou led 71 of the 100 laps, but this wasn’t a stroll down Easy Street. He took the lead for good on Lap 69 when Kirkwood pitted from the lead for the last time and stayed out front on restarts on Laps 72, 76, 83 and 93 after full-course yellows bunched the field.

The move to the front was paved a few laps earlier when strategist Barry Wanser and Palou decided to make their final pit stop at the end of Lap 63, switching from the faster but less durable Firestone Firehawk alternate tire to the primary tire. Wanser saw a variety of jousts for position unfolding on the tight, nine-turn, 1.645-mile street circuit and wisely didn’t want Palou to get caught on track under caution and lose track position.

Wanser’s decision proved prescient on Lap 66 when Santino Ferrucci’s No. 14 Homes For Our Troops Chevrolet of AJ Foyt Racing nudged the rear of Rinus VeeKay’s No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet into a spin in Turn 5. Kirkwood was leading but still had to make his final stop, which he did under yellow on Lap 69 and was forced to use a set of Firestone Firehawk alternates per INDYCAR rules that require at least two sets of the softer rubber to be used in street-circuit events.

Palou rocketed away from Alexander Rossi’s No. 20 Java House Chevrolet of ECR on the restart on Lap 72. Rookie Mick Schumacher and David Malukas were engaged in an intense duel for third on the restart, with Schumacher missing the corner in Turn 5 and nosing into the barriers in his No. 47 ENVE Honda of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Malukas had nowhere to go and ran wide in his No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, with the incident triggering another full-course caution on Lap 73.

By this point, Kirkwood had worked his way back to third after his final pit stop and had to make the most of the added early grip of the alternate tire before the increased durability of Palou’s primary tires prevailed in the closing laps. Kirkwood passed Rossi and then set sail for Palou, knowing this was his best chance to win.

Kirkwood pulled to within two car lengths of Palou on Lap 79 and appeared to be ready to pounce for the lead when Ferrucci’s car slowed in Turn 4 with a mechanical problem, triggering the fifth full-course yellow of the race on Lap 80.

“We took a little bit of a gamble on tires there, being the only guy on reds (alternates) at the end,” Kirkwood said. “It nearly paid off. It was so, so close. There were two untimely yellows.

“We almost covered Palou when we were on primes, which would have been phenomenal, and then we had that other yellow where I had him lined up. I was ready to make a dive on him, and, of course, (the yellow) comes out after I burned 10 seconds of overtake. From there, we just didn’t really have another shot at it. I think I just used up my tires too much to make that one pass.”

Palou kept the lead on the restart on Lap 83, but Kirkwood continued to push and forced Palou into a flat-spotting tire lockup on Lap 88. But Palou gathered himself and his car and started to pull away, building a lead of 1.8929 seconds by Lap 91.

But there was one more restart for Palou to manage after Rossi clipped the rear of the No. 18 BMax Honda driven by Romain Grosjean of Dale Coyne Racing and sent Grosjean into the outside wall approaching Turn 3 on Lap 91. That triggered the last of six full-course yellows, but Palou pulled away from Kirkwood and the field on the Lap 93 restart and was never threatened despite the 173 on-track passes today, a high for a street circuit this season. 

“Being able to be up front was key,” Palou said. “On the first stint, I started struggling and kind of put myself in a bad spot and lost two positions with Lundgaard and (Scott) McLaughlin. I lost us positions there, but the team made a great call to be safe with the yellow. It kind of worked out for us.”

Fittipaldi Wins Motor City Thriller, Takes Series Lead.

DETROIT (Sunday, May 31, 2026) – Enzo Fittipaldi returned his famous last name to Victory Lane in Detroit for the first time in 35 years, winning the INDY NXT by Firestone Detroit Grand Prix despite driving nearly the entire distance with a damaged front wing and nose cone.

Series rookie Fittipaldi won the race, originally scheduled for 45 laps but switched to a timed event, under caution in the No. 67 HMD Motorsports car after starting seventh. It was his second victory of the season and vaulted him to the championship lead in the INDYCAR development series, seven points ahead of Nikita Johnson of Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR and eight ahead of HMD teammate Tymek Kucharczyk.

SEE: Race Results

The victory also was the first by the legendary Fittipaldi name in Detroit since his grandfather and two-time Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi won INDYCAR SERIES races on a different downtown street circuit in the Motor City in 1989 and 1991.

“I just pushed as hard as I could,” Enzo Fittipaldi said. “I found pace. I was really, really fast. Just so happy to get the win. I love to race; I’m a racer.”

Series veteran Myles Rowe finished a season-best second in the No. 99 Abel Motorsports with Force Indy machine, with rookie Kucharczyk rounding out the podium finishers in the No. 71 HMD Motorsports entry.

Rookie Max Garcia tied his season-best finish by placing fourth in the No. 12 Abel Motorsports machine, with veteran Seb Murray rounding out the top five in the No. 27 Megatron car of Andretti Global.

Frenzied action started from the drop of the green flag on Lap 1, as Lochie Hughes made an aggressive move into the Turn 3 hairpin with his No. 26 Andretti Global car, punting pole sitter Alessandro de Tullio into a spin from the lead in the No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing entry. Hughes received a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.

Fittipaldi nudged another car in that chain-reaction melee, which damaged the right side of his front wing and punched a large hole in his nose cone. Kucharczyk took the lead from that point, keeping it on the restart on Lap 8.

Kucharczyk built a lead of 3.324 seconds over Fittipaldi by Lap 13, with Rowe climbing to third by Lap 18. Rowe dove under Fittipaldi for second on Lap 20 and started to chase down Kucharczyk.

By Lap 21, Rowe pulled to within .5477 of a second of leader Kucharcyzk, slicing 1.6 seconds from the Polish driver’s lead in just three laps. But the complexion of the race changed on Lap 26 when the second of four full-course yellow flags in the race were unfurled for debris on the nine-turn, 1.645-mile temporary street circuit.

The restart came at the end of Lap 27, with Rowe trying to dive under Kucharczyk for the lead immediately after the green flag, in the Turn 3 hairpin. But the move forced both cars wide, leaving an opening along the inside curb for Fittipaldi.

He took it, squeezing past Rowe and Kucharcyzk and never trailing thereafter. Fittipaldi stayed out front on another restart on Lap 34 after Niels Koolen nosed his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing machine into the barrier in Turn 8.

“I got it done,” Fittipaldi said. “I knew Myles was going to go for a lunge there, and I just prepared my mid-(corner) to exit of Turn 3, and he went on the lunge on Tymek, and I was able to do the crossover and got the lead. I had the pace to stay there, and I was actually pulling away.”

The decisive move was one of 141 on-track passes, including 124 for position, in the exciting race – both INDY NXT records for any circuit on which the series has competed in the Motor City.

Fittipaldi expanded that gap to nearly six-tenths of a second when Andretti Global’s Max Taylor also nosed into the barrier in Turn 1 in his No. 28 Susan G. Komen car with about four minutes, 20 seconds left in what had become a timed race, triggering the final caution. Taylor’s car could not be cleared in time to restart the race, with the field finishing under yellow.

“I was losing quite a lot of time through (Turns) 6 and 7,” Fittipaldi said of the damage to his car. “It was quite difficult. Down the straight, I could feel the air coming through my legs and I said: ‘Man, this is not good. We’re definitely dragging a lot on the straight.’ It was hard to keep that lead and keep up with the guys.”