’s 2025 season was the perfect for an driver in practically 20 years.
He gained a career-high eight races, . He gained his third straight collection title and his . He made the rostrum 13 instances in 17 races.
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But for those who ask Palou, he’ll inform you he’s going into Saturday’s qualifying for Sunday’s needing to show himself another time.
“Who cares about what we did final 12 months?” he stated. “It’s cool to have 4 championships, however the one essential 12 months is 2026. All people began with zero factors on the board and we have to do it another time.”
That’s far simpler stated than accomplished, though Palou is off to a quick begin in his quest for a fifth championship having gained two of the primary 4 races on the IndyCar schedule to face second within the driver standings, two factors behind .
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“Final 12 months was magical,” stated Palou, who has captured 10 of the final 21 checkered flags, relationship to 2024. “As an athlete you at all times wish to carry on enhancing, however I have to be real looking and perceive that to win eight races in IndyCar in the identical 12 months, it’s fairly robust to beat.
“So though I wish to obtain that, we simply must take 2026 individually and simply strive our greatest, attempt to win as many races as attainable after which clearly combat for the [Indy] 500 and the championship.”
Successful Lengthy Seashore, one of many few prizes on the IndyCar circuit that has eluded him, can be a giant step in that drive for 5. However that gained’t be straightforward since passing on the tight 1.968-mile road course, with its 11 turns, is troublesome. That makes observe place essential, placing a premium on Saturday’s qualifying and on pit stops in Sunday’s race.
“It’s at all times tremendous robust to be aggressive there,” Palou stated of Lengthy Seashore, the place he completed second final April, giving him three straight podium finishes. “One of many solely unhealthy issues about road racing [is] that it’s actually robust for us to overhaul with how tight the tracks are and all of the bumps.
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“It simply makes it tremendous difficult.”
Alex Palou competes in the course of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in Florida on March 1. (David Jensen / Getty Photographs)
Not as difficult because the race Palou, essentially the most profitable Spanish driver in IndyCar historical past, needed to run simply to get right into a race automotive.
As a boy rising up within the tiny Catalan village of Sant Antoni de Vilamajor, Palou began kart racing about the identical time he began grade college. He was 15 when he completed second within the 2012 European karting championship but he didn’t see a lot of a future past that.
had completed in the identical spot 13 years earlier, then went on to develop into essentially the most profitable System One driver in historical past. However England has a long-established historical past with open-wheel racing and Spain didn’t.
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“He got here from nothing, exhibiting up at a carting observe after which having these large goals and aspirations. And right here he’s,” stated Barry Wanser, the senior supervisor of IndyCar operations for Chip Ganassi Racing.
“I do know he’s very proud he’s the primary Spaniard to win the Indianapolis 500. That’s simply completely unimaginable.”
However that was by no means the aim.
“Truthfully,” Palou stated, “my aim was simply to have enjoyable. Once we began, I by no means wished to be a race automotive driver for a residing. I by no means thought that it might be attainable.”
Earlier than Palou, Fernando Alonso, a two-time F1 champion, was Spain’s most profitable open-wheel driver. After Alonso is Carlos Sainz Jr., who has gained 4 F1 races; Pedro de la Rosa, who made greater than 100 F1 begins however climbed the rostrum simply as soon as; and Oriol Servià, who ran 79 IndyCar races in 9 years however by no means positioned increased than fourth earlier than retiring in 2019, one 12 months earlier than Palou made his debut within the collection.
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Other than Alonso, these drivers had been good however not nice, leaving the street from Spain to success in open-wheel racing a slender one. That’s a path Palou is now widening.
“I might say that for certain it’s serving to future generations that I’m right here and that I had success,” he stated, “simply because they’ll know that with a standard European background you may come to the U.S. and combat for wins and championships.”
Alex Palou celebrates after profitable the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 1. (David Jensen / Getty Photographs)
Wanser stated what makes Palou so good is his really feel for each the automotive and the observe and his skill to speak together with his crew.
“He has a really distinctive skill to know what he wants the automotive to do to maximise efficiency on the tires,” stated Wanser, the race strategist for Ganassi’s No. 10 automotive who has generally been known as Palou’s indispensable associate. “You’re speaking about street programs, road programs, for the first [tires] — the hards and the softs — and understanding what he wants for qualifying and likewise what the automotive wants for decreasing tire deg[redation] in the course of the race.”
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For now Palou, who turned 29 earlier this month, seems content material with mastering these abilities in IndyCar somewhat that following the pure development into an F1 experience.
He stated he went “all in” to win an F1 seat following his first IndyCar title in 2021, however doubts about whether or not he’d be given a aggressive automotive led him to again out. Rumors linking him to Crimson Bull’s F1 crew surfaced after final 12 months’s Indy 500, however Palou shot these down too, saying he was staying with Ganassi.
Wanser, clearly, is proud of that call and hopes it can repay Sunday in Lengthy Seashore.
“Alex could be very younger, proper?” he stated. “IndyCar is so aggressive that we may by no means, ever take into consideration being complacent. If we begin heading down that street, we are going to get beat and get beat typically.
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“It’s nonstop making an attempt to consistently enhance, understanding each weekend we present as much as the racetrack it’s going to be troublesome to win.”
This story initially appeared in .
