The 26-point advantage Kyle Kirkwood carried into Barber Motorsports Park shrank to just two after Alex Palou led 79 of the 90 laps in the Children's of Alabama Indy Grand Prix and won by 13.2775 seconds over Christian Lundgaard. It is the third time Palou has won at this circuit in the last six races held here and the 21st victory of his IndyCar Series career, on a Sunday without a single caution where the four-time champion started from pole and held the lead through every pit cycle restart.

Photo By Penske Entertainment

Kirkwood, who had saved a fresh set of alternate tires for the race during Saturday's qualifying, finished fifth 17.7 seconds back and now has 156 points against 154 for Palou and 121 for Lundgaard, who moved up to third in the championship with his runner-up finish at Barber.

Lundgaard lost nine seconds on his final stop and had to charge back again

Lundgaard started tenth and picked off positions with aggressive moves at Turn 5, where he passed Marcus Ericsson on lap 5 and Santino Ferrucci four laps later, both times with late braking on the inside. In the second half of the race, running second on alternate tires, he cut Palou's lead from 7.2 to 3 seconds in 13 laps, and when Palou made his final stop on lap 65 Lundgaard inherited the lead. He stayed out four more laps trying to stretch his advantage before coming in, but the right rear tire change was slow, the stop ballooned to 17.8 seconds (roughly nine more than normal) and Lundgaard returned to the track in third, behind Rahal and 11 seconds off Palou.

"I think we would have caught him," Lundgaard said. "We know the pace we had and how we were closing it down. It's unfortunate. The guys have done an amazing job, and that almost never happens to us. One in almost 100 races, I think that's alright." With 21 laps to go, Lundgaard set about recovering and three laps from the end passed Rahal at Turn 5 to claim second place.

Photo By Penske Entertainment

Rahal finished third for the first time since 2023

Graham Rahal had passed Malukas on lap 17, also at Turn 5, and ran inside the top three for most of the race. Although he lost second to Lundgaard in the closing laps, he held off Malukas on the final lap to keep third place, his first top 3 since the second race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in August 2023. "I felt like this was coming," Rahal said. "We're pretty happy with this." David Malukas was fourth, his third result of sixth or better in four races with Team Penske, and the top five came from five different teams.

Photo By Penske Entertainment

The contrast within Arrow McLaren was stark: Lundgaard charged from tenth to second with 11 on-track passes, while Pato O'Ward went the opposite direction, from 12th in qualifying to 17th in the race, more than a minute behind Palou. Nolan Siegel, the team's third car, finished 18th and one second behind O'Ward.

Will Power, who hit the barriers on Saturday due to a rear brake failure and started 23rd, climbed to 12th, the best possible result considering he was the last of the competitive cars on the grid. Scott McLaughlin, who also ran a backup car after his crash in first practice, finished 16th from 14th on the grid, a weekend to forget for two drivers who had won at Barber in previous seasons.

Palou had to navigate lapped traffic in his final stint

The only complication for Palou in the entire race came in the final stint, when Dennis Hauger briefly held him up before Palou got past with an aggressive braking move at Turn 12. Just a few laps earlier, on the pit exit on lap 65, Palou and Mick Schumacher ran side by side down the warm-up lane in a tense moment before both merged onto the track.

The next round of the IndyCar Series is the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday, April 19, on a weekend shared with IMSA.

Children's of Alabama Indy Grand Prix - Race

Pos	#	Piloto	Equipo	Vueltas	Tiempo	Mejor Vuelta
1	10	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	90	105:57.822	1:08.692
2	7	Christian Lundgaard	Arrow McLaren	90	+13.277s	1:08.613 FL
3	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	90	+14.288s	1:08.777
4	12	David Malukas	Team Penske	90	+14.996s	1:08.905
5	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian	90	+17.797s	1:08.962
6	66	Marcus Armstrong	Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian	90	+20.741s	1:08.713
7	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	90	+24.746s	1:09.206
8	14	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	90	+41.570s	1:09.119
9	28	Marcus Ericsson	Andretti Global	90	+43.859s	1:08.718
10	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	90	+51.898s	1:09.224
11	20	Alexander Rossi	ECR	90	+52.983s	1:09.105
12	26	Will Power	Andretti Global	90	+54.048s	1:09.012
13	60	Felix Rosenqvist	Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian	90	+54.503s	1:09.453
14	76	Rinus VeeKay	Juncos Hollinger Racing	90	+54.923s	1:08.771
15	18	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing	90	+58.858s	1:09.063
16	3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	90	+1:00.138	1:09.436
17	5	Pato O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	90	+1:01.069	1:08.900
18	6	Nolan Siegel	Arrow McLaren	90	+1:02.407	1:09.275
19	21	Christian Rasmussen	ECR	90	+1:03.268	1:09.333
20	8	Kyffin Simpson	Chip Ganassi Racing	90	+1:04.016	1:09.431
21	4	Caio Collet	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	90	+1:06.302	1:09.415
22	77	Sting Ray Robb	Juncos Hollinger Racing	89	+8.982s	1:09.499
23	19	Dennis Hauger	Dale Coyne Racing	89	+9.675s	1:09.545
24	47	Mick Schumacher	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	89	+12.889s	1:09.352
25	45	Louis Foster	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	89	+37.466s	1:09.330