Tuned To Perfection: Alex Palou’s Newest INDYCAR Title One For Historical past Books

Dario Franchitti freely admits he loves watching Alex Palou race.

Positive, he loves to observe Palou win. However how Palou will get it executed actually impresses the four-time INDYCAR champion who has remained at Chip Ganassi Racing to educate drivers. Not that Palou wants a lot teaching.

“He has an attractive driving type, which I actually admire,” Franchitti stated. “I really like watching.

“He’s like taking part in an instrument when he drives a automobile.”

Palou has orchestrated a symphony that some would take into account unprecedented by clinching the 2025 title Sunday at Portland Worldwide Raceway. And that is with two extra races left within the season.

He doesn’t simply emulate one instrument when he is in his trip. 

At instances, he drives as clean as a saxophone in good swing. When he must stomp, he crushes like knowledgeable drummer. From the opening lap of the opening observe, he has performed Reveille on a bugle whereas the competitors stumbles in, waking up round him.

“It’s unprecedented in fashionable instances, clearly,” stated his group proprietor Chip Ganassi. “We’re actually, actually happy and excited and glad watching him be part of historical past.”

Ganassi has seen his drivers dominate, however not like this. Whereas Franchitti compiled 31 victories in his INDYCAR profession, he by no means received greater than 5 races in a season. He as soon as mixed with Scott Dixon to win 10 races in a 12 months for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Palou? The 28-year-old received 5 of the primary six races of 2025 and eight of the 14 previous to Portland. A record-tying 10-win season stays a risk for him to match A.J. Foyt and Al Unser. Palou joined the listing of drivers with 4 championships: Foyt (seven), Dixon (six), Mario Andretti (4), Sebastien Bourdais (4) and Franchitti (4).

“It is superb,” Palou stated. “I am having fun with it quite a bit. I am having fun with each single second.

“It is not that I am not aware about what is going on on. It is simply that I can’t actually consider it, and I am simply driving the wave and having fun with each single second of it and having enjoyable.”

It is not simply those that work inside the partitions of Ganassi who’ve watched this historic season in awe. A number of drivers who know first-hand the sensation of dominating an open-wheel season have a look at what Palou has executed and might’t consider what they see.

Don’t neglect — all of the vehicles come from Dallara. The engines both come from Chevrolet or Honda. He hasn’t acquired or constructed a automobile to out-engineer the competitors. And Palou has, at instances, outrun the sphere by seconds.

“I can solely evaluate that to when somebody has an enormous benefit car-wise in System 1,” stated Will Energy, who received six races in 2011 and has 45 profession INDYCAR victories. “You don’t see that dominance in a one-make sequence like INDYCAR. That’s what’s so distinctive about it.

“Distinctive. You’ll be able to’t deny that man … he in all probability needs to be in System 1. It’s simply so unbelievable.”

Palou’s teammate Dixon, the winner of six titles with a career-best six-win season in 2008, is aware of he won’t witness such a historic season once more. 

“You simply have years like that, and it simply flows,” Dixon stated about what he’s seen out of Palou this 12 months. “It’s not even a confidence factor. It’s simply type of you flip up, and also you count on the whole lot to go proper.”

After all, it goes proper with the power of the group, led by longtime strategist Barry Wanser, engineer Julian Robertson and crew chief Ricky Davis. They matched setups to Palou’s means so they may discover the candy spot of precisely how arduous to push the present INDYCAR tires (each the hards and the softs). They’ve strategized to determine how clean to drive it to get the perfect gas mileage. 

“You’ll be able to’t say sufficient good issues about what that entire group is doing,” Dixon stated. “They’re simply doing a greater job than everyone else.”

When Palou received 4 of the primary 5 races of 2025, it appeared he may have a profession 12 months. In spite of everything, he had “solely” received 11 races in his first 5 seasons, regardless of incomes three Astor Cup trophies because the champion.

And up till the Indianapolis 500, he had by no means received on an oval. So questions lingered.

When he received the five hundred, it answered the query about any hurdles remaining. It unleashed a driver who has now additionally received at Iowa.

Road course, everlasting highway course, superspeedway or brief oval — it hasn’t mattered this season. Palou has received at them.

“I believed, to be sincere, as much as the Indy 500 like ‘All proper, the momentum is nice, the whole lot’s falling into place,’” stated Helio Castroneves, winner of 4 Indy 500s and 31 INDYCAR races.

“And now, it is nonetheless there. And even then, perceive seasons like this, it’s very, very, uncommon that it occurs the place you would possibly capitalize on the whole lot you possibly can.”

Positive, Palou had some luck alongside the best way. 

A few of the high opponents for the Indy 500 had mechanical points or crashes. The warning got here out on the proper time for him to win at Iowa when Josef Newgarden led lap after lap after lap. For probably the most half, Palou and Wanser selected a technique and it labored.

Palou has not had a mechanical failure all season. The one race he didn’t end got here at Detroit, because of a success by David Malukas.

As different drivers see it, Palou shouldn’t really feel responsible that he has capitalized on some breaks.

“You’ve simply acquired to financial institution and take it and do not look again,” Castroneves stated.

Even when he hadn’t gotten a break right here and there, Palou would nonetheless have managed his championship future. Seasons like this simply don’t occur. The final driver to earn eight wins in a season was Sebastien Bourdais in 2007. Earlier than then, it was eight wins in 1994 by Al Unser Jr.

“I can’t evaluate it,” Ganassi stated. “This man is in a league of his personal.”

For 17 consecutive seasons from 2006-2022, no driver clinched earlier than the ultimate race. Now Palou has executed it twice and each got here at Portland, with one race to go in 2023 and now two races remaining in 2025.

“What Palou is doing is so spectacular at the moment … to be that dominant” Energy stated. “It’s not like they’ve been fortunate wins. They’ve been dominant wins.

“I like seeing that. It lifts everybody’s recreation. You must examine somebody and perceive why they’re quick and what it’s about their execution on race day that’s permitting it to work out for them.”

Some have in contrast his degree of dominance this 12 months to Alex Zanardi in profitable 12 races in 1997-98. Palou received his title in his sixth season, yet one more than it took Bourdais to earn his fourth however faster than Foyt (seven seasons), Franchitti (14), Dixon (15) and Andretti (21).

“Definitely, all 4 of mine got here right down to the final race, and in some instances, the final lap,” Franchitti stated about evaluating their championship runs. “The final one I keep in mind with that degree [of dominance] was Zanardi. It is fairly one thing.”

Graham Rahal, a 19-year veteran of the sequence, noticed his father, Bobby Rahal, win six races in 1986.

“It’s spectacular,” Rahal stated. “It’s extra spectacular now than it was even in my dad’s period as a result of there was an even bigger separation between groups and competitiveness again then.”

Rahal indicated there may be some separation between the Ganassi vehicles and your entire grid this 12 months. He factors to Dixon amid the highest 5 within the standings and the stark enchancment of younger driver Kyffin Simpson.

“These vehicles are clearly a step forward of everyone else, too,” Rahal stated. “That’s a actuality. However Alex maximizes it in each section.”

In some racing sequence, when a driver or group shows such dominations, the whispers get louder and louder of whether or not they have some unfair benefit. However nobody appears to assume that.

“I can promise you there’s not some blatant dishonest factor happening,” Energy stated. “That group is simply executing so properly. The driving force is executing properly. He’s simply doing an extremely good job.”

Few drivers know that feeling. AJ Allmendinger received 5 Champ Automotive races in 2006 throughout the time when there have been two competing open-wheel sequence. 

He stated not getting complacent, and for Palou, the flexibility to not race conservatively simply to win a title has helped him crush the competitors.

“It is actually phenomenal watching what he is doing as a result of I really feel like, identical to the Cup Collection, you can argue INDYCAR is probably the most aggressive sequence on the earth proper now, and he is simply destroying everyone,” Allmendinger stated.

“I simply keep in mind profitable these races, you simply stroll into the racetrack with a lot confidence, figuring out that everyone, as you stroll in, is you, saying ‘How can we beat this man?’”

They in all probability look with some annoyance, Allmendinger stated. 

“You simply don’t see dominance in INDYCAR by one particular driver normally” Allmendinger stated. “It’s fairly particular to observe.

“I do know for all of them, it’s in all probability a bit of little bit of annoying. However to have the ability to watch greatness because it’s occurring is one thing that I actually take pleasure in.”

That’s particularly the view from these on the within at Ganassi, even for these whose data Palou may ultimately break.

As Franchitti stated, Palou drives as if he performs a musical instrument. However he performs it nonetheless looking for methods to make the sound ever extra clean, much more crisp. 

“From a group viewpoint and from a driver viewpoint, it is bloody spectacular,” Franchitti stated. “Alex continues to carry out at his extremely excessive degree, however he retains in search of extra.

“He is always questioning, he is always asking, he is always seeking to enhance himself. He’s a hell of a bundle.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports activities. He has spent a long time masking motorsports, together with over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting Information, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Seaside) Information-Journal. Comply with him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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