![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Alex-Palou---Ontario-Honda-Dealers-Indy-Toronto---By_-Joe-Skibinski_Ref-Image-Without-Watermark_m138.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAlex Palou suffered his worst race finish of an otherwise dominant 2025 IndyCar campaign with a 12th place finish on the streets of Toronto.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McLaren\u2019s Pato O\u2019Ward picked up his second victory of the season after overcutting Dale Coyne Racing driver Rinus Veekay at the final round of pitstops.\u00a0<\/p>\n
O\u2019Ward flexed his trademark racecraft when fighting through the pack early in the race before firing in a quick in-lap to jump VeeKay and then cruised to the victory from there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Palou\u2019s 20-year-old Ganassi team-mate Kyffin Simpson earned his maiden IndyCar podium in third place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What went wrong for Palou\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Detroit, Palou was given a 25th place \u2018finish\u2019 but in reality, Palou\u2019s race ended in the wall and he didn\u2019t complete the last 28 laps.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
So his 12th at Toronto marks the weakest race finish of a season that\u2019s included seven race wins – including the Indianapolis 500 – in just 12 races and this is the first time he’s failed to finish inside the top 10 this season. <\/p>\n
Palou started from the front row alongside polesitter Colton Herta, and he remained in the lead group early in the race, even if Marcus Armstrong and Kyle Kirkwood demoted him to fourth on the opening lap.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those demotions were partly down to Palou picking the alternate harder tyres for the race start while those around him had softs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It only took until lap three of the 90-lap race for the first caution of the race with Team Penske\u2019s tricky streak continuing via a loose wheelnut sending Scott McLaughlin into the wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Herta, Armstrong and Kirkwood all took the chance to make an early pitstop to rid themselves of the soft tyres, with Palou staying out and leading the race on the hards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Palou built up a solid lead that suggested he could be on for yet another victory, but things went south when there was another caution when Alexander Rossi clipped the wall and destroyed the right rear of his car. <\/p>\n
That wiped out Palou\u2019s advantage and put him into an unusual scenario of having to fight to get inside the top 10.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amid further chaos and cautions, which included Josef Newgarden helplessly having Jacob Abel’s car on top of his Team Penske-run machine, Palou made progress to 12th but ultimately fell short with the timing of the cautions meaning his strategy backfired.<\/p>\n
So if it was down to strategy, can Palou feel like he didn\u2019t do anything wrong?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWell I chose the strategy, so there\u2019s what we did wrong today,\u201d Palou said when that was put to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pushing for that strategy, thought it was going to give us the best option to win [as] the car was really fast, I wanted to be up front trying to avoid being there, trapped in traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut honestly it happens, we knew it was going to be a risky strategy compared to starting on alternates.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was kind of working, I was able to open a big gap after that first yellow, but it was not enough today, not our day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
What it means for the title race\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Alex-Palou---Ontario-Honda-Dealers-Indy-Toronto---By_-Chris-Owens_Ref-Image-Without-Watermark_m13787.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
This is by no means much of a blow to Palou\u2019s hopes of a fourth IndyCar title but may just mean he\u2019s got to wait a little bit longer.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Ward\u2019s win – only Chevrolet’s second this season! – helps him to close the gap to Palou from 129 points to 99 points – that\u2019s still just short of two full race wins and there\u2019s only four races left!\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a big boost for O\u2019Ward\u2019s chances of finishing second in the championship for the first time, though, as he\u2019s now 74 points clear of Kirkwood, who has jumped Scott Dixon for third in the points. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Palou suffered his worst race finish of an otherwise dominant 2025 IndyCar campaign with a 12th place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-9880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}