O’Ward Wins Both Milwaukee Races; Palou Is the IndyCar Champion

Milwaukee Mile was the setting for an IndyCar doubleheader that ended with Pato O'Ward winning both races on Sunday, something the series had not seen since 1981, and with Álex Palou mathematically clinching his fifth championship, his fourth in a row.

Photo By Penske Entertainment

The weekend was already complicated before the first drop of rain fell, after Scott McLaughlin, Palou, and David Malukas received nine-place grid penalties for unapproved engine changes at the previous round in Washington D.C., which reshuffled much of the original grid and forced Palou to charge from the back in both races.

The first race of the weekend, originally scheduled for Saturday, was stopped with a red flag on lap ninety of two hundred fifty when rain returned to the 1.015-mile oval. The suspension lasted more than twenty-five hours and forced organizers to adjust the order of the two races, moving the one scheduled for Sunday to the front and leaving the resumption of the first for the end of the weekend.

That schedule change proved decisive for O'Ward. In the race that was completed on Sunday, he charged back from a difficult position after a pit-stop issue cost him time early, found his way back to the front, and held off Scott McLaughlin in the final laps to win by less than a second. Christian Lundgaard finished third with the best oval result of his career, David Malukas was fourth, and Palou rounded out the top five.

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Hours later, O'Ward climbed back into his Arrow McLaren Chevrolet to complete the one hundred sixty laps remaining from the first race. He led the restart, lost the lead to Malukas during the pit stop, and spent much of the final segment fighting to get it back. The resolution came on the lap two hundred twenty-six restart, when O'Ward, Malukas, and McLaughlin arrived virtually three-wide at the first corner, and the Mexican found space on the inside to take the lead, which he never relinquished to the checkered flag.

Malukas finished second again, unable to close out either race of the weekend with a victory. Rinus VeeKay took third for his first podium finish of the season, with McLaughlin fourth and Christian Rasmussen fifth. O'Ward thus became the first driver to win two IndyCar races on the same day since Rick Mears did it in 1981 at Atlanta, a stat that underscores how rare that combination is in forty-five years of series competition.

Malukas, who has now accumulated six second-place finishes without a win in the series, said he was frustrated with the result and attributed part of his troubles to engine misfires on restarts and on pit exit throughout the weekend.

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Palou arrived at Milwaukee with a commanding lead over Kyle Kirkwood in the overall standings and only needed to maintain a minimal gap to mathematically clinch the championship. He finished fifth in Sunday's race and tenth in the resumed race, results sufficient to confirm the title before the weekend was over.

The championship is his fifth career title and his fourth in a row, a streak that only Sébastien Bourdais had previously achieved in the series, between 2004 and 2007. At twenty-nine years old, Palou became the youngest driver to reach five championships, ahead of A.J. Foyt, who had reached that mark at thirty-two. Only Foyt, with seven titles, and Scott Dixon, with six, have more championships than Palou in IndyCar history, and for Chip Ganassi Racing it was the organization's eighteenth championship.

Palou said the achievement belongs entirely to the team and that he is already thinking about the next goal.

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Honda secured its twelfth manufacturers' championship in the series, even though Chevrolet- powered cars occupied the top seven positions in the race that finished with Sunday's restart and the top three in the separately run race. Combined across the two races, there were more than seven hundred positional passes, the highest number of overtakes ever recorded at the Milwaukee Mile in IndyCar history.

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The season now arrives at its final round. The finale is the Mission Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, where Palou has won three of the last four editions and where he will race with a special livery in honor of Alex Zanardi, a two-time series champion who passed away on May 1.

Snap-on Milwaukee Mile 250 

Pos	#	driver	team	laps	time
1	5	Pato O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	250	117:50.241
2	3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	250	+0.792s
3	7	Christian Lundgaard	Arrow McLaren	250	+2.746s
4	12	David Malukas	Team Penske	250	+3.288s
5	10	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	250	+12.044s
6	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian	250	+17.531s
7	76	Rinus VeeKay	Juncos Hollinger Racing	250	+18.700s
8	21	Christian Rasmussen	ECR	250	+22.784s
9	28	Marcus Ericsson	Andretti Global	250	+24.084s
10	45	Louis Foster	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	250	+26.862s
11	20	Alexander Rossi	ECR	249	+2.332s
12	14	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	249	+2.836s
13	47	Mick Schumacher	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	249	+5.165s
14	26	Will Power	Andretti Global	249	+5.681s
15	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	249	+7.942s
16	66	Marcus Armstrong	Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian	249	+23.833s
17	6	Nolan Siegel	Arrow McLaren	249	+24.457s
18	77	Sting Ray Robb	Juncos Hollinger Racing	248	+9.382s
19	8	Kyffin Simpson	Chip Ganassi Racing	248	+16.179s
20	60	Felix Rosenqvist	Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian	248	+16.733s
21	19	Dennis Hauger	Dale Coyne Racing	248	+20.407s
22	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	247	+15.736s
23	4	Caio Collet	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	246	+15.012s
24	18	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing	155	-
25	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	150	-

Snap-on Makers and Fixers 250

Pos	#	driver	team	laps	time
1	5	Pato O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	250	131:42.167
2	12	David Malukas	Team Penske	250	+1.754s
3	76	Rinus VeeKay	Juncos Hollinger Racing	250	+2.864s
4	3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	250	+5.223s
5	21	Christian Rasmussen	ECR	250	+7.211s
6	7	Christian Lundgaard	Arrow McLaren	250	+7.728s
7	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	250	+8.827s
8	28	Marcus Ericsson	Andretti Global	250	+9.844s
9	66	Marcus Armstrong	Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian	250	+15.215s
10	10	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	250	+15.903s
11	45	Louis Foster	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	250	+16.086s
12	47	Mick Schumacher	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	250	+17.049s
13	6	Nolan Siegel	Arrow McLaren	250	+17.602s
14	20	Alexander Rossi	ECR	250	+18.125s
15	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian	250	+20.822s
16	8	Kyffin Simpson	Chip Ganassi Racing	250	+22.551s
17	60	Felix Rosenqvist	Meyer Shank w/ Curb-Agajanian	250	+24.600s
18	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	249	+6.253s
19	18	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing	249	+20.336s
20	14	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	248	+4.581s
21	19	Dennis Hauger	Dale Coyne Racing	248	+19.754s
22	77	Sting Ray Robb	Juncos Hollinger Racing	248	+22.614s
23	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	246	+12.967s
24	4	Caio Collet	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	211	-
25	26	Will Power	Andretti Global	199	-