WILL POWER WINS IN PORTLAND, BUT PALOU SEALS 4TH INDYCAR TITLE
The 2025 Grand Prix of Portland delivered a captivating afternoon of racing drama. Team Penske’s Will Power claimed his first victory this season, while Álex Palou clinched his fourth career NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship and his third in consecutive seasons with a measured and masterful drive to third place today.
Christian Lundgaard was the fastest in Saturday’s qualifying session, earning pole position on merit with a fresh engine. However, his hopes for a straightforward start were immediately complicated by a six-place grid penalty for exceeding the season limit of engine changes. This pushed him down the order at the start.
At the drop of the green flag, Will Power quickly established himself among the front runners, Pato O’Ward and Rosenqvist, executing consistent lap times and a genious. The first lap saw Alex Palou immediately gaining P4 over David Malukas, and Santino Ferrucci spinning out on the last corner, hitting the wall by himself and becoming the first retired from the race.
Conor Daly and Rasmussen had a fierce battle at the restart for 2 laps in a row. Unfortunately Daly had the worst ending, as he got touched in the rear by Christian Rasmussen and was completely slammed into the wall at 250+kph. The driver is luckily OK.
After the race went back to green, Pato O’Ward was hit by a technical issue on the car which made him slow down, and he had to crawl back to the pits. There was no chance for the Mexican to return to the race, which means that Alex Palou sealed the 2025 drivers’ title on the first quarter of the race. This allowed the Chip Ganassi Racing driver to seal the championship with two races remaining on the calendar.
The race lead fell in Will Power’s hands as Felix Rosenqvist was struggling to find the pace, whilst the Mclaren who took pole, Lundgaard, already made his way up into P2. Alex Palou was following them behind.
The fight for the race lead got really intense towards the end of the session, with 20 laps to go the three leaders were separated by 1,5 seconds. Palou wanted to attack Lundgaard, but the Danish tried to avoid it in order to go after Power for the win. Palou found the space to dive around the inside of Lundgaard in sector 2, but got sent off track by the Papaya driver, with no consequences for him.
Will Power then managed to build a gap and secure both his and Penske’s first win of a disastrous 2025 season, the second in a row in Portland Raceway.
At only 28 years old, Palou now joins a select group of four-time champions: Dario Franchitti, Mario Andretti and Sebastien Bourdais, with his titles coming in 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025.
The IndyCar season is far from over. The series will return in two weeks’ time for the Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250s, a doubleheader on the historic oval in Wisconsin. While the championship may be decided, race victories remain fiercely contested.
For now, though, the spotlight belongs to Will Power’s return to victory lane and Álex Palou’s remarkable fourth championship, as Indycar takes a week of rest for the next race.
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