INDIANAPOLIS — It may be too early to put Alex Palou in the conversation as one of IndyCar’s all-time greats, but the popular driver from Spain is certainly off to a great start.
Palou has three NTT IndyCar Series Championships in just four seasons. He is the first driver to win back-to-back IndyCar Series titles since Dario Franchitti won three-straight from 2009-11.
He has all the makings of becoming a generational talent in the sport.
The 1960s and 1970s belonged to AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, Al and Bobby Unser. Rick Mears represented excellence in the 1980s. Al Unser, Jr. and Alex Zanardi epitomized the 1990s. Sam Hornish and Sebastien Bourdais were the stars of the early 2000s.
The current generation belongs to six-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon.
Palou is prepared to own the future.
But there remain some goals that Palou needs to achieve before he reaches legendary status.
In a five-season IndyCar career that began with Dale Coyne Racing and Team GOH in 2020, Palou has won 11 races, all coming in the last four seasons. With 11 victories in his first 81 starts, that’s quite an impressive average.
But Palou will be the first to admit that none of those wins have come on an oval race track and that is a motivating factor for the current Chip Ganassi Racing driver as he prepares for the 2025 season.
“I’m not proud at all about that stat, obviously,” Palou told NBCSports.com. “I’m proud that we haven’t lost time on winning championships while I’m still getting up to speed on the ovals, but I’m not proud that we haven’t won on an oval yet.
“We’ve been knocking on that door. I’ve been pushing myself. Everybody on the team has been pushing to try and get that one, but it was not the year yet.
“We will be working, we will be preparing and hopefully we can knock two big goals that we have, which is the oval win and the Indy 500 win, in one weekend next year.”
Team owner Chip Ganassi saw star quality in Palou when he was at Dale Coyne Racing and hired him to drive the No. 10 Honda during the offseason. Palou drove to victory in his very first race for Ganassi in the 2021 season-opening contest at Barber Motorsports Park.
Six weeks later, Palou was battling Helio Castroneves for the victory in the 105th Indianapolis 500.
Palou performed with all the savvy of a proven Indy 500 veteran that day but couldn’t beat one of the all-time greatest drivers in Indy 500 history as Castroneves won the historic race for the fourth time in his career.
Castroneves became the fourth, four-time Indy 500 winner that day, joining Foyt, Unser (Sr.) and Mears.
Palou could have scored his first oval track victory in the biggest race on the schedule in 2021.
“It would have been incredible, but maybe it was too early, maybe it was too early for me to think that I was good on ovals,” Palou said. “This has been pushing me to look maybe very deep, very deep on how my teammates drive, how other people drive, how other teams perform, and what I can try and get from myself to try and be the best I can on an oval.”
For any IndyCar Series driver, the greatest motivation is winning the Indianapolis 500, followed by an IndyCar Series Championship.
Both are special and both carry different significance.
A championship proves a driver’s skill and ability on street courses, road courses, short ovals and superspeedways. The IndyCar title may be the greatest test of a racer’s skill of any championship in racing because it demands excellence in different disciplines.
The Indianapolis 500 is the most historic race in the world that draws the largest crowd of any single-day, paid sporting event on Earth.
An IndyCar Series Championship is celebrated throughout the offseason, before settling in on a race driver’s record.
An Indianapolis 500 victory stands the test of time as a driver becomes immortalized on the Borg-Warner Trophy with a Bas Relief image of the driver’s face added to the permanent trophy featuring every winner since Ray Harroun won the first in 1911.
When asked how important an Indy 500 win would be to Palou’s career, his face lit up with his trademark smile.
“Oh, you will see when we get it, hopefully very soon,” Palou said. “I love this sport a lot. I love the fans a lot, but I love the event and that track so much.
“It has a different kind of energy. You can feel it when you enter the track and during driver intros, seeing everybody there it’s super special. I cannot wait.”
There is little doubt that Palou is the best driver in IndyCar in the 2020s, even without winning a race on an oval track.
But it’s obvious that the driver of the No. 10 DHL Honda is motivated to collect the full set of IndyCar victories on each type of track. He brought that up himself when he finished second to Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin in the Hy-Vee One Step 250 at Iowa Speedway this July.
McLaughlin won his first race on an oval that day and said he can finally call himself “an IndyCar driver” with that victory.
Palou’s response was slightly stunning, considering his championship status.
“For sure a big step up, but I still a long time to go,” Palou said of finishing second on an oval. “I cannot call myself an IndyCar driver yet until I win on an oval.”
It was a stunning statement for IndyCar’s best driver to make. Even one of his fiercest competitors reassured Palou of his talent.
“No, you definitely can (call yourself an IndyCar driver),” McLaughlin said with a laugh. “Don’t worry about that.”
A look at Palou’s time at Chip Ganassi Racing certainly proves why he has earned his status as a generational talent. He scored three victories in 2021 when he won his first championship.
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 26: IndyCar driver Alex Palou driving the #10 car, celebrates winning the 2021 Indycar Driver Championship at the 2021 Acura Grand Prix Of Long Beach on September 26, 2021 in Long Beach, California. (Photo by Greg Doherty/Getty Images)
Alex Palou celebrates the 2021 IndyCar Series Championship at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach — Getty Images
On July 12, 2022, Palou made a stunning announcement that he had signed a contract to join McLaren in 2023 that included a potential Formula One opportunity. Ganassi objected, invoked the option year on Palou’s contract, which forced Palou to fulfill the terms of the contract for the 2023 season.
That was a year where Palou was nearly flawless. He won five races in 2023 and became the first driver since Bourdais in 2007 to clinch the season title before the final race.
By August of 2023, Palou concluded he was on the best team in the series and told McLaren he would not honor the agreement to join the team in ’24.
Ganassi signed Palou to a contract extension at the end of last season, and Palou thanked him with another championship in what some may view as a “bonus” year for this combination.
Palou won two races in 2024 and was able to capitalize on the mistakes made by his championship competitors.
“I would describe last year, 2023, as just magical when we had five wins,” Palou explained. “We never had any big issues even when the front wing was falling off and we finished second in Toronto. Worst finish was eighth, so it was just a magical almost perfect season.
“This one was a magical season where you end up winning the championship, but it was not all perfect.
“We had a lot of downs with some driver errors, some accidents that we were involved that we couldn’t really do anything, mechanical issues, engine penalties, like this last race at Nashville that we had to start 24th.
“We had to overcome a lot more a lot more issues but still it’s been magical that we ended up winning the championship back-to-back.”
When he clinched his third IndyCar Series title in the final race of the season, the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway on September 15, Palou was 27 years, 5 months, 14 days old, making him 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.
Palou became just the 13th driver in IndyCar history to win at least three championships. He is just the seventh to win three titles in four years, with Franchitti — also for Ganassi — the last to do so from 2009-11.
By winning the IndyCar Series title in 2023 and 2024, he became the first driver to win back-to-back championships since Franchitti won three-straight from 2009-11.
Palou is the latest star driver on one of the star teams in all of racing, the famed Chip Ganassi Racing. His third IndyCar Series Championship was team owner Chip Ganassi’s 16th in a 29-year period.
Jimmy Vasser won Ganassi’s first championship in 1996 in CART. Alex Zanardi won two more CART championships in 1997 and 1998, and Juan Pablo Montoya won the 1999 CART championship, giving the team four in a row during that stretch.
The string of success continued with Dixon winning six championships beginning in 2003 and most recently in 2020. Franchitti also had his aforementioned success.
“It’s surreal to be here again, it’s amazing that we’ve won three championships and that we’ve been able to do it back-to-back,” Palou said. “Man, I just want more now.
“This feeling of winning, this feeling of overcoming issues together with the team and working every single weekend just to try and be a little bit better, it’s been amazing.
NBCSports.com asked Palou which is more impressive — that he has won back-to-back IndyCar Series Championships or that he has claimed three titles in four years?
“It’s tough to say, but I would say back-to-back,” Palou said. “To go back-to-back, it’s actually really tough just because when you win sometimes it’s easy to maybe relax a little bit and think that, Hey, we were so good last year, maybe we don’t need to push as much. I learned that after 2021 that, man, everybody’s trying to catch up from today probably.
“So, back-to-back is really tough. That’s probably why we don’t see that often. I would say obviously three and four years, it’s very tough as well.
“Hopefully we keep on working, we keep on pushing and if you can try and catch up to what Dario did back in 2009, and 2011.”
SALINAS, CA - SEPTEMBER 20: Former driver and 4 time IndyCar Series Champion Dario Franchitti chats with fans in the paddock of the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey on September 20, 2019, at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, CA. (Photo by Larry Placido/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Dario Franchitti — Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Franchitti can relate to Palou’s streak of success as he experienced that before his career was cut short after suffering a serious head injury in a crash in the 2013 Shell Grand Prix of Houston.
Franchitti won both the Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar Series Championship in 2007 when he was with what is now known as Andretti Global. He left IndyCar in 2008 to join Chip Ganassi Racing in NASCAR because he wanted a new challenge.
Franchitti returned to IndyCar with Ganassi in 2009 and made the most out of his second IndyCar career. He won two more Indy 500s in 2010 and 2012 and won three more IndyCar Series Championships from 2009 to 2011 giving him a total of four IndyCar Series titles.
After his racing career ended abruptly with the crash in the IndyCar Series race at Houston, Franchitti remained at CGR as a driver coach and consultant.
He has worked closely with Palou and the two share a very positive relationship.
“I’ve said it since 2021 that he was a huge part of the team success and he is today, as much as he was in 2021,” Palou said. “I would say everywhere. He was an amazing, IndyCar driver. He’s able to see stuff that maybe I don’t see because I’m so focused on my driving.
“Dario is able to maybe zoom out a little bit and be like ‘Alex, maybe you need to see what Scott Dixon is doing or what Marcus or Linus or other teammates are doing, or you need to try and push Julian, my engineer, on that direction.
“He’s a huge part of the team I would say that maybe it on the team for so long and knowing him so well privately you lose a little bit of the respect that I would have if he was from another team or if I didn’t have that relationship, but it’s pushing me to try and be like him. I’m trying to catch up and hopefully next year we can do the same thing they did back in 2009 with actually the same car, same team, same number.”
Franchitti was among the first to congratulate Palou for joining him as a back-to-back champion. He then quickly reminded the driver that he remains one-up on him.
“First thing he said, ‘I still have one more’ meaning like he did it three years in a row,” Palou explained. “But that’s what I mean. It makes you respect what he did but at the same time, it pushes you to like, hey, man, I can try and catch you.
“I’m sure that he’ll be pushing the team, he will be pushing myself next year to try and get three in a row as he did.”
Palou made the final race of the season a little more dramatic than necessary. He was the fastest driver in the Saturday morning practice session and considered a threat for the pole.
By changing engines after the previous race at Milwaukee, Palou’s No. 10 was over its allotment of engine changes for the season, which meant a nine, grid-position penalty for the race at Nashville.
If Palou won the pole, he would have started ninth. But he qualified a shocking 15th, which combined with the penalty, placed him 24th on the starting grid.
That put Team Penske’s Will Power in a legitimate position to actually win the championship in the race, if Palou did not finish in the top 11.
Twenty-four hours later, on Lap 13, the drama all left the championship chase when Power had to come into the pits because the lap belts came unconnected.
Five laps passed before Power could return to the race and by then, the championship was over.
“Yeah, it’s crazy,” Palou reflected. “I’ve never heard that somebody had issues with the belts in IndyCar before, and I would say that it’s been long since somebody at the same time had issues with the battery, normal 12-volt battery in the car before, like we had a couple of weeks ago at Milwaukee.
“So, it’s been a season of drama as you say where you don’t you didn’t really know if Alex was going to clinch it and run away. No, the battery fails and now Will Power is getting the leader points in Milwaukee but then he has an issue on a restart and then he loses the lap belts in Nashville at the season finale.
“Not the way you want your top contender to go down. At the same time, I think that’s better than an accident and him being hurt or anything obviously, but still it’s been a season that nobody had a perfect a perfect season overall and I’m glad that we were able to have just the best season overall.”
While Palou is the star driver at Chip Ganassi Racing with three championships, the legend in the lineup is Dixon with six IndyCar Series championships. That’s just one behind AJ Foyt’s record of seven.
Team owner Ganassi said if Scott Dixon is the “Ice Man,” then Palou is “Cool as a cucumber.”
Palou believes keeping his cool is a major part of his success.
“It depends,” he admitted. “I think there would be some drivers that couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to perform maybe with my mindset, wouldn’t be able to be so explosive with my way of thinking and I would say not only racing but life in general.
“But it works for me. It’s what keeps me pushing, what keeps me never giving up and always trying to see the bright side of the issues that we have.
“At the same time, I think it wouldn’t work for me to be so explosive and maybe a bit hotter when everything was good and a bit more desperate when everything was going bad.
“I think there are two sides which works for different drivers and I’m glad we have different personalities in IndyCar.”
Nearly every driver up and down pit lane has displayed a temper from time to time. It’s either directed at another driver on the race track, or maybe something that goes wrong on the team.
But try to think of the last time anybody has seen Palou get mad.
The driver said, looks are often deceiving.
“I’ve been mad,” Palou said. “I get mad. I get mad a lot. Like you should ask my team. They know when I’m mad.
“I was mad after qualifying because we wanted to be in Nashville because we wanted to go for pole. Instead of that we finished 15th, when we had the car to do a little bit better. We just went too aggressive with downforce and couldn’t hold it flat.
“So, I was mad. They knew it. But I just maybe didn’t show all the world that I was mad.”
Palou and Chip Ganassi Racing celebrated his third championship after the race at Nashville Superspeedway on September 15.
Two weeks later, at a more formal affair known as the IndyCar Victory Lap Award Ceremony at the Gallagher Pavilion at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Palou and CGR were honored for their latest accomplishment.
“The driver never ceases to amaze me,” Ganassi said of Palou. “I have never met a driver who can stay focused the way Alex does with all of the sideshow noise that goes on in this sport.
“Your career is off to a good start in IndyCar,” Ganassi continued as he looked at his championship driver. “You have a good future here.
“I look forward to many more with you.
“It’s nice to win the championship with a new sponsor at DHL. I also want to thank The American Legion and look forward to another year with them this year.
“Having great sponsors makes things easier.
“I’ll close with this – this never gets old.”
When it was time for Palou to speak to the crowd, he joked that he wasn’t using a teleprompter. Instead, he chose to speak from the heart.
“When I was five years old, my dream was just to be a race car driver,” Palou said. “It wasn’t an IndyCar driver because it felt so far away, I could dream of achieving it.
“My family didn’t have any experience in racing. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they got lucky, and they made it work. This trophy and everything goes to them.
“My personal team pushes me to get better every day. And my manager, Roger Yasukawa, I want to think him for everything you have done, for arranging my future.
“I also want to thank my extensive group of lawyers that I have all over the world. I have lawyers all over the world and they are the best. They take really good care of me.
“It’s true that I have a really extensive group of lawyers.
“Mike, Chip, thank you guys. You took a big chance on me. I was not an IndyCar race winner when you offered me the No. 10 car. You took a big chance on me and now we are three-time IndyCar champions.”
The celebrations lasted for a few weeks after the season concluded in mid-September. But in racing, a team always has to keep pushing forward to maintain its edge over the competition.
“We’re already focused,” Palou said. “I was this morning at the shop, yes, celebrating and being happy, but we’re already speaking about 2025, the things that I could improve as a driver, where we could improve as a team overall.
“So, the guys, everybody back at the CGR shop are working hard already towards that. So yeah, going to be a great year.
“And man, I’m hungry. I’m hungry for more. I’m hungry to try and get more for the team, to try and get more for myself.”
So how does Palou top back-to-back IndyCar Series Championship seasons when he returns to action in 2025?
“An Indianapolis 500 win and then another championship, hopefully a three-peat,” Palou said. “So that’s a goal, obviously it’s a really ambitious goal, but that’s what we need to have in mind.”
Spoken like a true champion and potential legend.
Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500
