Alex earns his first IMS win as Williams' Texas challenge fades

Alex turned the closest of qualifying contests into his first IMS win by making an early stop work and outlasting HP's challenge. The Williams stayed within a second through lap seventeen. Over the remaining eleven laps, Alex pulled clear while the fight for the other podium places changed around him.

On his seventh IMS start, he beat Poly by 4.100 seconds, with HP third after losing second on the final lap. Webbah had looked capable of joining them until a mistake left him nursing a damaged wing. TheMDog and Rizla came through from sixteenth and fourteenth to finish fourth and fifth, the Aston driver's recovery keeping him at the top of a championship Alex has now brought within reach.

Pos	+/−	Team	Driver	Grid	Gap	Points
P1	0	Audi	alexuk6420AudiGrid 10	1	45:16.474	31
P2	0	Cadillac	PolyTrompCadillacGrid 20	2	+4.100s	23
P3	0	Williams	HPJonesWilliamsGrid 30	3	+8.098s	19
P4	▲12	VCARB	TheMDogVCARBGrid 16▲12	16	+13.479s	15
P5	▲9	Aston Martin	RizlaAston MartinGrid 14▲9	14	+15.273s	13
P6	▲3	Aston Martin	MagMagnussenAston MartinGrid 9▲3	9	+15.831s	11
P7	▲1	Red Bull	Rickk116Red BullGrid 8▲1	8	+18.267s	9
P8	▼2	Ferrari	xAQxFrFerrariGrid 6▼2	6	+18.697s	7

The early stop changes the chase

Only seventeen thousandths separated Alex from Poly in qualifying; HP was another three behind. That closeness carried into the opening lap, when Poly was ahead at the first sector before Alex regained the lead by lap end. After seven laps, the Cadillac was still less than half a second behind him.

Alex stopped at the end of lap eight, with HP doing the same. Poly waited one more lap. By the end of lap ten, the Audi was more than two seconds ahead of the Cadillac, and the Williams had moved between them.

Asked afterwards whether staying out for the overcut was worthwhile, Alex's answer was “absolutely not”. He reckoned the undercut was worth “like 1.5 - 2 seconds a lap”. The benefit had come early; he still needed to get twenty laps out of the Hards.

First there was traffic to clear. Ussh and Tiago had started on Hards and were running longer, leaving both ahead of Alex at the end of lap twelve. Alex got past them on lap thirteen to retake the lead, with HP following through. Ussh would eventually finish fourteenth after two stops, frustrated that his opening stint had left him stuck in a train until lap twelve. Running longer had given him a brief lead without a route into the fight that followed.

HP had put himself exactly where his pre-race win call required him to be. In Spain, his closing speed had arrived with too much ground to recover. Here he was already within a second of the leader. Alex had a long way to go with a Williams close behind.

The next threat to that order came from further back. Poly lost nearly 3.4 seconds to Alex on lap sixteen, then blamed Tiago's defence on older Hards for holding him up and almost spinning him. Tiago disputed the complaint, arguing that the Cadillac's fresher tyres should have made passing straightforward. Whatever Poly thought of the defence, the delay had brought Webbah into the contest.

Webbah had stopped at the end of lap eleven, three laps later than his team-mate. By lap seventeen, he was within 1.342 seconds of Poly on younger Hards. HP's three-second penalty gave him another way onto the podium if he could stay close enough. Williams had an early stopper chasing Alex and a later stopper closing on the Cadillac.

Then Webbah lost the chance. He described catching a half-spin out of the final corner, accelerating again with the battery deployed and snapping into the wall. He carried the damaged wing to the finish.

Rizla was ahead of him on lap nineteen, TheMDog followed on lap twenty, and the Williams continued to lose time. Ninth brought five points. Webbah thought he might have been better off stopping again.

The fight changes behind Alex

The cars reaching Webbah had been racing each other since the opening lap. TheMDog and Rizla ran side by side in a fight the VCARB driver was still enjoying afterwards, with TheMDog ahead by lap end. From sixteenth on the grid, he worked past Ussh, Tiago and Gennaro during the first six laps. His recovery was well under way before the stops began.

It continued through an exchange with Rick, who got ahead on lap thirteen before TheMDog retook the place two laps later. Rizla had stopped earlier, on lap eight, and was ahead of the VCARB once both had changed tyres. By the finish, only 1.206 seconds separated them on the road. The Aston's three-second penalty reversed their order.

Fourth was twelve places better than TheMDog had started. Fifth was enough for Rizla to limit the cost of his poor qualifying, while MagMagnussen's sixth helped Aston match Williams' twenty-four points and keep their two-point constructors' lead.

At the front, HP was losing ground to Alex as Poly closed on the Williams. The Cadillac reached the final lap still behind him, then took second before HP's penalty was applied.

“Had no pace,” was HP's immediate assessment. He had solved Spain's problem of leaving himself too much to recover, but could not match Alex over the closing stint. Poly salvaged second from the race he felt traffic had cost him; his twenty-three points were Cadillac's entire return.

Alex reported finishing with roughly 78% tyre wear after making the Hards last twenty laps. Pole, decisive progress through traffic and the pace to see off HP made this his most complete IMS drive yet, improving on second in last season's Brazil finale. A little of the old L0 was showing. Three rounds have now produced three different D1 winners, and the newest is eleven points from the lead.

Rizla has 66, Poly 56 and Alex 55, ahead of Webbah on 47 and HP on 39. Audi's thirty-one points came despite Leandro's retirement. For the drivers who had been disputing the championship before Texas, there is now another car to beat.

Alex had a simpler post-race plan: “celebratory pot noodle”.