By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer

Alex Palou added another crown jewel victory to his already, historic, NTT IndyCar Series resume on Sunday afternoon. The Spaniard won his first Long Beach Grand Prix in just his fifth start at the California street circuit, and notches his third win of 2026. 

“Feel so, so lucky with the opportunity I had to win the 500 last year, the Long Beach GP this year, it just feels like I’m living on this amazing cloud of happiness,” Palou said. “Incredible work by the team today. I think we were fighting there with the 60, trying to match him on the soft tires. I think we could have fighted a little bit, but he was a bit stronger than us today. We were just trying to figure it out, if we were going to be able to go one lap longer on fuel. This full-course yellow put everything on that pit stop. The guys did an incredible job once again”

Palou’s race winning move came on pit lane when the field made stops on Lap 59. The lone caution of the race for debris in Turn 4 saw every driver make their final pit stops of the race. Palou and the No.10 Chip Ganassi Racing crew took advantage of having the first pit stall and beat Felix Rosenqvist out of the pits to claim the lead of the race. The No.10 crew executed their stop 1.1 seconds faster than the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing crew for Rosenqvist. 

Palou gave full credit to the No.10 crew for executing the stop to get him out in front. 

“The confidence again was super high because I know the crew has been doing an incredible job, especially this year and last year,” Palou said. “You never know, it only takes one second, like a small mistake, and then suddenly you go from second to seventh. The guys know as well. The pressure that they have to take that moment was pretty high. Incredible work they did.”

Rosenqvist was arguably the driver of the day, leading a career high 51 laps after starting on pole position, a feat he accomplished at Long Beach in 2024. The Swede has struggled in 2026, with an 11.6 average finish, but walked away from Sunday’s race proud of the result. 

“I think all in all we got to be happy as a weekend for us at Meyer Shank Racing,” Rosenqvist said. “We had a win yesterday with Nick [Yelloy] and Renger [van der Zande] in IMSA. We had a pole there as well, then a pole here and a P2. We just fell short of a grand slam. If you kind of take the perspective, it’s been a very, very good weekend. Obviously you want to win when you have the opportunity. “I’m proud of today. I think everything we were working on kind of paid off today. I’ve been in this position many times before, being on pole or at the front, then something kind of fell short. 

“I feel like today we just had really, really solid pace. Actually incredible pace on the reds, not as good as Alex on the blacks. I just kind of struggled a little bit on that last stint. It was going to be hard to pass him anyways. Yeah, that last pit cycle was kind of the defining moment. I don’t even think we had that bad of a stop. We had to come around the 14. I don’t know if Alex had an open in. Details like that matter. It didn’t seem like a super slow stop, but he probably nailed it or his crew. Yeah, that happens. End of the day I’ll gladly take a P2 today.”

Scott Dixon would complete the Honda sweep of the podium, ending the day in third. Like Rosenqvist, Long Beach would be the best race of Dixon’s 2026 season. The veteran CGR driver would qualify sixth, a season’s best. Much like his CGR teammate in Palou, Dixon and the No.9 crew would take advantage of the Lap 59 pit stops to gain positions. Dixon would go from sixth to third after the stop and hold off Kyle Kirkwood in fourth for the last stint of the race. 

“Huge weekend for the Ganassi cars,” Dixon said. “I think probably one of the best for qualifying between all of us, which was really good. It was nice just to have a clean weekend, no major issues, no damage, no mess-ups or anything like that. That was a lot of fun. The race itself for us was just a bit blah, to be honest. We kind of sat in the same position, tried to go long. Fuel mileage was really good, which Honda does a great job at. I think everybody is caught up a lot on figuring out what they need. Unfortunately for me the balance had a lot of understeer, so it was very difficult to roll the corner and roll off the throttle to get that mileage. Yeah, interesting day. The last stop luckily for us we had an easy out. Looked like a lot of the people we were fighting had cars in front of them or behind them, which kind of paid off for us. Great weekend. Hopefully something we can build on and keep rolling.”

Kyle Kirkwood and Pato O’Ward completed the top five, with both drivers securing good points hauls as the Andretti Global and Arrow McLaren drivers continue their consistent 2026 campaigns. O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren teammate, Nolan Siegel was the biggest mover of Sunday’s race, climbing from a starting position of 25th to finish 12th. 

SEE: 2026 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach Results 

Palou leaves Long Beach with a 17-point cushion to Kirkwood heading into the Month of May in Indianapolis.