You learn from mistakes and although perhaps, Indianapolis 500 standings of 2022 was not a mistake as such for Alex Palou, The Spaniard came out of that timed session with a lesson learned that a year later has helped him go down in history. The Ganassi driver got the first Spanish pole position in this event and although it was not easy, the feat began to take shape last season as the Catalan recognized, after winning in the tightest front row on the grid of Indy 500 history: “Last year it was close, and there we learned that we had to be more aggressive to achieve it. We told ourselves that if we were in a similar situation again we would be aggressive and, luckily, we have been.
It was to finish an upward progression in his four participations in the 500 Miles. 7th, 6th, 2nd… and first in two and a half decisive minutes that began to work “since the race finished last year.” Palou wanted pole position as much as now he wants victory, “there are a lot of people putting a lot of effort” to achieve it and that justifies a euphoric celebration full of reality: “We celebrated it in a very emotional way. I lost my voice! We couldn’t celebrate anything last year and we don’t know if we’ll be able to do it next week. But this doesn’t happen often so even though It’s not a victory, it’s something special.”
The Ganassi driver is right in recognizing that this pole is not the victory, but the first step to achieve it. What to do next Sunday in the race? “You don’t have to do much differently from other years: we did very well in 2021, better in 2022… the same is going to be ours now. We have to work just as hard, avoid strategy problems like last year and from there continue doing curve by curve, lap by lap, overtaking by overtaking as best we can”.
Palou’s confidence will come through the air and “facing the race it’s good” because from the beginning, everything will be “more relaxed” for the Spaniard. That he expects the support of the people “so that we go faster” in a test, where everything will be decided in the last breath: “In recent years here everything has not been decided until the last few laps and this one is not going to be different”. Although I hope it is, at least, with the name of the winner.