Álex Palou revealed that he had an understanding with Marcus Ericsson after a touch that caused him to retire from the Road America GP. The reigning champion also reflected on his bad phase in the season
Álex Palou minimized the accident with Marcus Ericsson that caused abandonment in the Elkhart Lake GP of IndyCar Series. Still in the opening laps of the race, held last Sunday (12), the Spaniard from Ganassi collided with his teammate in an attempt to avoid an overtake, and with suspension damage, he did not return to the race.
In an interview with NBCSN after the race, Palou criticized Ericsson, implying that the overtake was dirty. Cool-headed, the defending champion revealed a conversation with the 2022 Indianapolis 500 winner and admits that the reaction was disproportionate.
"We didn't see each other on Sunday, but Marcus called me on Monday and everything is fine. I don't think my reaction was good, as everyone could see. It's not like you have an opinion on that, the reaction was not good. Normally, in a touch like that, you don't even take a sticker off the car. It was not intentional on Marcus' part, for sure. There was nothing wrong with the overtaking," the Spaniard told the Racer website.
Álex also talked about his bad moment in the 2022 season. After a strong start, with three podiums in the first four races, the Spaniard ended a sequence of races outside the top-5, and with the abandonment at Road America, he only occupies the 5th position in the drivers' championship.
"We had a great start to the championship until May, which was not so good. The car was very fast, but we didn't get the results we could have. We started third at Road America, but the points are given on Sunday. A lot of things happened that were frustrating, but bad things happened too, we didn't lose to ourselves," he concluded.
Indy returns on July 3 with the Mid-Ohio GP at Lexington. It will be the ninth of 17 rounds for the 2022 championship.