LEBANON, Tenn. (AP) — Alex Palou easily drove to his third IndyCar championship in four years when challenger Will Power's seatbelt came loose minutes into the season-deciding finale Sunday at Nashville Superspeedway.
Colton Herta, who earlier this year moved to Nashville, won the Music City Grand Prix for his first career victory on an oval and second win of the season for Andretti Global. Herta topped Pato O’Ward in a wheel-to-wheel battle in the closing laps.
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Pato O'Ward (5) and Colton Herta (26) drive during an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Drives pass under the green flag as they start an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Alex Palou drives during an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Alex Palou stands with his team before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Will Power, right, greets fans before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Alex Palou, right, greets fans before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
“I couldn’t ask for a better ending to the year,” Herta said.
But all attention was on the championship race as Palou, a Spaniard who won his first title in 2021 in his first season driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, won back-to-back IndyCar titles.
“He never broke a sweat,” said team owner Ganassi, who celebrated his 16th IndyCar title in 29 years.
“I don't know too many guys who have three championships, not that many, but he's in pretty rarified air right now,” Ganassi continued. “His name has certainly got to be in the conversation of great drivers.”
Palou became just the 13th driver in IndyCar history to win at least three championships. He's just the seventh to win three titles in four years with Dario Franchitti — also for Ganassi — the last to do so from 2009 through 2011.
“I had no idea it would be this much fun or he would be this successful,” Ganassi said about signing Palou before the 2021 season.
At 27 years, 5 months, 14 days, Palou became the second-youngest driver to win three championships. Only Sam Hornish Jr. was younger at 27 years, 2 months, 8 days when he won his third title in 2006.
The competition for the crown was only between Palou and Power, the two-time champion from Australia who won his last title in 2022 sandwiched between Palou's run.
Power had two chances in the last two races to reclaim the crown but failed to capitalize both times. Palou had an engine issue two weeks ago at the Milwaukee Mile and Power was briefly in position to win the race until the Australian spun on his own and finished a disappointing 10th.
That allowed Palou to take a 33-point lead into Nashville, where the downtown street race had been shifted 35 miles away to the existing concrete oval because of construction on the Tennessee Titans' new stadium. Palou had never before raced on a concrete oval, while Power finished 11th in his only career race at the superspeedway, IndyCar's final visit in 2008.
But things began looking up for Power when Palou had a disastrous qualifying effort at 15th, and also had a nine-place penalty on the starting grid for an unapproved engine change. That dropped Palou to 24th for the start and Power, who qualified fourth, had erased Palou's lead to a meager seven points when the race began based on their current running positions.
It was still going to take a lot of work for Power to give Team Penske the title as Palou only needed to rally to a ninth-place finish to win the title no matter where Power finished. He wound up 11th in the race.
It had long been a moot point because on the 14th lap, Power's lap belt came undone.
“My belt, my belt has come off!” he shouted on his radio.
Power had to pit under green so his crew could get him safely buckled back correctly, and Power had dropped five laps off the pace by the time he got back on track.
By then, Palou's lead was back up to 46 points as he sliced his way through the field. He drove from 24th to 12th in about 30 laps, while Power had plummeted to last.
He said after the race the belt came loose a second time in the closing laps and it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer for inspection.
“I've never had that before,” Power said. “I want to give a big congrats to Alex, a tough guy to beat ever since he joined Ganassi. Happy with the season, we did well, but we want to win that championship and we'll come back next year.”
Power ultimately finished 24th in the 27 car field and dropped to fourth in the final standings. Herta jumped up to second and was followed by Scott McLaughlin, who finished third in the standings and ended the season as the highest-ranked Team Penske driver for the second consecutive year.
O'Ward finished second in the race and fifth in the overall standings, while Nashville native and two-time reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden was third in the race but a distant eighth in the standings.
Scott Dixon finished 17th in the race, which dropped him to sixth in the overall standings. The six-time IndyCar champion had not finished lower than fifth in the standings since 2016.
Santino Ferrucci finished sixth in the race to and end up ninth in the final standings — the highest an AJ Foyt Racing car has ranked since 2002. But it wasn't an overall banner day for the team as Sting Ray Robb's 20th-place finish eliminated that car from IndyCar's leaders circle program.
The leaders circle program pays a monetary bonus to the top 22 teams in the final standings and many organizations depend on that cash to fund their season budgets. Robb's car — which will be driven next year by David Malukas — fell one point short of the leaders circle bonus.
The drivers who squeezed out the final spots were Pietro Fittipaldi for Rahal Letterman Lanigan and Christian Rasmussen, who at the last minute was given the final three races of the season at Ed Carpenter Racing in an effort to keep the car inside the money.
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Pato O'Ward (5) and Colton Herta (26) drive during an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Drives pass under the green flag as they start an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Alex Palou drives during an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Alex Palou stands with his team before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Will Power, right, greets fans before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Driver Alex Palou, right, greets fans before an IndyCar auto race Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
LONDON (AP) — A British teen pleaded guilty Monday to murdering three girls and attempting to kill 10 other people in what a prosecutor said was a “meticulously planned” stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, entered the surprise plea as jury selection had been expected to begin at the start of his trial in Liverpool Crown Court.
The July 29 stabbings sent shock waves across the U.K. and led to a week of widespread rioting across parts of England and Northern Ireland after the suspect was falsely identified as an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in Britain by boat. He was born in Wales.
The attack occurred on the first day of summer vacation when the little girls at the Hart Space, a sanctuary hidden behind a row of houses, were in a class to learn yoga and dance to the songs of Taylor Swift. What was supposed to be a day of joy turned to terror and heartbreak when Rudakubana, armed with a knife, intruded and began stabbing the girls and their teacher in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England.
“This was an unspeakable attack — one which left an enduring mark on our community and the nation for its savagery and senselessness," Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor Ursula Doyle said. “A day which should have been one of carefree innocence; of children enjoying a dance workshop and making friendship bracelets, became a scene of the darkest horror as Axel Rudakubana carried out his meticulously planned rampage.”
Prosecutors haven’t said what they believe led Rudakubana — who was days shy of his 18th birthday — to commit the atrocities, but Doyle said that it was clear he had a “a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence.”
Rudakubana had consistently refused to speak in court and did so once again when asked to identify himself at the start of the proceedings. But he broke his silence when he was read the 16-count indictment and asked to enter a plea, replying “guilty” to each charge.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and additional charges related to possessing the poison ricin and for having an al-Qaida manual.
Rudakubana faces life imprisonment when sentenced Thursday, Justice Julian Goose said.
Defense lawyer Stanley Reiz said that he would present information to the judge about Rudakubana's mental health that may be relevant to his sentence.
The surviving victims and family members of those killed were absent in court, because they had expected to arrive Tuesday for opening statements.
Goose asked the prosecutor to apologize on his behalf that they weren't present to hear Rudakubana plead guilty.
He pleaded guilty to murdering Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6.
Eight other girls, ranging in age from 7 to 13, were wounded, along with instructor Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, who worked in a business next door and intervened. Fifteen other girls, as young as 5, were at the class but uninjured. Under a court order, none of the surviving girls can be named.
Hayes, who was stabbed and seriously wounded, said he still had flashbacks to the attack and was “hugely upset at the time that I wasn’t able to do more.”
“But I did what I could in the circumstances,” he told Sky News. “I’m grateful to be here, and by all accounts I’ll make a full recovery, at least physically. … I’m going to be OK and others won’t be, and that’s really where I I think the focus of attention should be.”
Police said the stabbings weren’t classified as acts of terrorism because the motive wasn’t known.
Several months after his arrest at the scene of the crime, Rudakubana was charged with additional counts for production of a biological toxin, ricin and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism for having the manual in a document on his computer.
Police said they found the evidence during a search of his family's home in a neighboring village.
The day after the killings — and shortly after a peaceful vigil for the victims — a violent group attacked a mosque near the crime scene and pelted police officers with bricks and bottles and set fire to police vehicles.
Rioting then spread to dozens of other towns over the next week when groups made up mostly of men mobilized by far-right activists on social media clashed with police during violent protests and attacked hotels housing migrants.
More than 1,200 people were arrested for the disorder and hundreds have been jailed for up to nine years in prison.
In this Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook, Southport stabbings suspect Axel Rudakubana appears on the first day of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court, where he has pleaded guilty to killing three young girls and wounded 10 other people in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Elizabeth Cook/PA via AP)
People queue at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Axel Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)
A prison van believed to contain Axel Rudakubana arrives at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)
A prison van believed to contain Axel Rudakubana arrives at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)
FILE - Police officers watch members of the public outside the Town Hall in Southport, England, Aug. 5, 2024 after three young girls were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club the week before. (AP Photo/Darren Staples, File)
FILE - Tributes are seen outside the Town Hall in Southport, England, Aug. 5, 2024 after three young girls were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club the week before. (AP Photo/Darren Staples, File)