Colton Herta earned his first IndyCar oval win and built momentum heading into 2025 after finishing second in the championship. (Photo: Chris Jones | Penske Entertainment)
LEBANON, Tenn. — With a late-race lunge in the closing laps at Nashville Superspeedway, Colton Herta snatched the lead away from Pato O’Ward to win the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.
O’Ward looked to be the one to beat in the final 50 laps of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season finale, fending off David Malukas, polesitter Kyle Kirkwood, and hometown hero Josef Newgarden.
However, a hard-charging Herta made quick work of Malukas and Newgarden on a late restart.
With just five laps remaining, Herta used the lapped car of Sting Ray Robb to force O’Ward high on the backstretch and lunge low for the race-winning pass in Turn 3. The Andretti Global driver fended off O’Ward until the checkered flag, earning the Nashville resident his first career oval win.
O’Ward only trailed by 1.811 seconds, followed by Newgarden to round out the podium.
“The whole race, I was getting my passes done coming off the corners, Herta said. “I was able to drive off the middle to exit of the corners and get the power down really well. We had a lapped car to play off of, and we had just enough room between us to go down low and get the pass [of race leader Pato O’Ward] done.
“I’m just so happy. The Gainbridge Group 1001 Honda has been so fast this whole weekend. We didn’t get to show it in qualifying, but we knew we had a hot rod in the race today. It’s been an amazing year. Second in the championship is awesome, but it gives us something to shoot for in 2025.”
The pass that sealed it #INDYCAR // @ColtonHerta pic.twitter.com/Wdr88cpyWj — NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) September 16, 2024Colton Herta overtakes Pato O'Ward for the win
The drummer from Santa Clarita was gifted a Gibson guitar for winning the race, but back in 11th-place, all eyes were on Alex Palou, who did enough to win the third championship of his young IndyCar career.
1,562 days after his series debut in 2020 at Texas Motor Speedway, Palou became the quickest driver to win three championships since Sebastien Bourdais in 2006, and the first back-to-back champion since Dario Franchitti in 2010.
He joins a fraternity headlined by Bobby Rahal, Al Unser Sr. and Rick Mears as a three-time champion.
The odds were very much against Palou at the start of the weekend as a nine-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change guaranteed the No. 10 DHL Honda would start 10th at best.
Will Power’s title hopes were done early in the Music City. (Photo: Chris Owens | Penske Entertainment)
However, poor qualifying efforts pushed him to the back of the field as title contender Will Power started fourth.
Unfortunately for Power, he experienced his own bad luck as the Team Penske driver felt the safety belts inside his No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet pop loose 10 laps into the 206-lap race.
“On the lap belt, I’m like ‘man, that was weird,’ Power said. “It felt kind of loose in the car. Came out of Turn 2 and I’m feeling around, and I felt the end of the belt as it goes in. I thought ‘Man, my belt just fell off, we’re going to have to pit.’ It took five laps to…
“It could’ve happened a second time at the race. We learned how to do it quickly. If we’d known that… That’s a very abnormal thing. I just don’t know what went wrong. We’ll have to send it back to the manufacturer. Very strange failure. I do wonder if I hit the wall and if it did break, if I was going to have a real bad situation, but never have that before.”
Power ended up coming to pit lane for the No. 12 crew to fix his belts, putting him multiple laps down, with a 24th-place finish to close out the year.
“I saw the 12 (car) going into pit lane,” Palou recalled. “At first I was like ‘Oh, what strategy are they going to pull off?”
For Palou, the objective remained clear, keep the wings and wheels on the car and bring it home in one piece. He easily achieved his objective with an exclamation point, running within the top five in the closing stages of the race and coming home just outside the top 10 in his run to the Astor Cup.
In an era where it was considered impossible to clinch an NTT IndyCar Series championship without oval prowess, Palou has grabbed three and he is hungry for more in the seasons to come.
“Imagine when we win on an oval,” Palou smiled. “Jokes aside, I know that I need to win. I want to win more than anything else at the moment. I don’t know. Is it going to be next year? Is it going to be in two years? It will come one day.”
Alex Palou won his third IndyCar title in the last four years. (Photo: Chris Jones | Penske Entertainment)
GRID Ranking
The 2024 GRID Ranking is the eighth year of the world’s premier motorsport ranking and was initially released on Sunday, April 7.
| DRIVER | OLD RATING | PREVIOUS RANKING | MOST RECENT FINISH | NEW RATING | NEW RANKING |
| Alex Palou | 15.86 | 4th | 11th | 14.93 | 7th |
| Colton Herta | 12.49 | 15th | 1st | 13.6 | 11th |
| Scott McLaughlin | 12.69 | 14th | 5th | 12.58 | 14th |
| Will Power | 12.83 | 13th | 24th | 12.07 | 17th |
| Scott Dixon | 12.22 | 16th | 17th | 11.5 | 18th |
Alex Palou’s quest for his first oval victory and fourth IndyCar title begins in just over 160 days with the 2025 Firestone Grand Prix on the streets of St. Petersburg when FOX Sports takes over from NBC Sports as the exclusive broadcast partner.
Results: 2024 Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway
