Alex Palou got a day off to celebrate his native Spain’s triumph in the World Cup final before hitting the racetrack and adding to his own trophy collection.
Palou won the rain-delayed Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix on Monday afternoon in Lebanon, Tenn., for his fifth title in 12 races this season.
The race was originally scheduled for Sunday after Fox concluded its coverage of the World Cup final, in which Spain bested Argentina 1-0 for the country’s second title. But as the racers waited — and Palou celebrated — storms rolled across Nashville Superspeedway. By the time the track was dried later Sunday night, another spate of storms made it impossible to fit in the race.
“That’s a pretty cool weekend for Spain, right? It was impressive what they did (Sunday) over at the World Cup. Happy to top it off today on Monday. My first-ever win on Monday, never raced on Monday, so it’s very cool.”
Palou, 29, inched closer to his fourth straight series championship and fifth in six years. He gained an additional 27 points on the field and leads David Malukas by 83 with six races left to go.
Driving his No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Palou finished 0.8731 seconds ahead of defending Nashville champion Josef Newgarden. Malukas, Newgarden’s Team Penske teammate, placed third. Palou led a race-high 97 laps.
Malukas, 24, hit his right knee against the steering wheel in a crash at practice Saturday and spent some time in the hospital this weekend for tests. The Indianapolis 500 runner-up was told he didn’t break or tear anything in the knee.
He went from last at the start of the race to third, leading 59 laps along the way.
“It’s so cool to see, when you have all these people work on a collective project, you can see it come to fruition and it’s gonna happen,” Malukas said. “And what a result. We needed that for the championship (race). We’re still there. It’s a good result, good recovery. Big thank-you to everybody. That was the hardest race of my life.”
Kyle Kirkwood, starting from pole position, settled for 10th.
–Field Level Media
