INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Alex Palou has dominated IndyCar lately, but was missing one big thing \u2014 the Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n
Consider that box checked.<\/p>\n
Palou and Chip Ganassi Racing continued their winning ways in 2025 by racing to victory in the Indy 500, marking Palou\u2019s first career oval win. The remarkable Palou became the first driver since A.J. Foyt in 1979 to win five of the season\u2019s first six races, and he has claimed three of the last four championships, including two in a row.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot believe it. What an amazing day. What an amazing race,\u201d Palou said.<\/p>\n
Palou had been open about the hole in his resume, which included Indy and oval tracks in general. He couldn\u2019t be considered one of the greats without it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to win at an oval,\u201d Palou said this week. \u201cTrust me, I\u2019m trying hard. There\u2019s nothing I can do until Sunday to change that. Hopefully, I can change it and I can win on Sunday. I know it\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Palou, a 28-year-old from Spain, will have his face immortalized on the Borg-Warner Trophy.<\/p>\n
To get it done, he took the lead from ex-Formula One driver Marcus Ericsson with 14 laps remaining and held off Ericsson with the help of a couple of almost-lapped cars in front of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw I had a small gap and I wanted to take it,\u201d Palou said. \u201cIt was a bit too early to go for it, but I thought it was my best strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Ericsson: \u201cAlex got a run on me, but I thought he wasn\u2019t going to go for it. That\u2019s the thing that\u2019s going to keep me up at night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palou was one corner away from the victory when a caution came out for a Nolan Siegel crash, and Palou crossed the finish line under yellow.<\/p>\n
The Siegel crash capped off one of the more chaotic Indy 500s in recent memory.<\/p>\n
Scott McLaughlin crashed on the pace lap while trying to warm up his tires, Marco Andretti crashed on the first green-flag lap and Kyle Larson, who had been attempting to complete every lap of the famed Memorial Day Weekend \u201cDouble,\u201d was among those who crashed out of the race before halfway.<\/p>\n
There was a flash fire on pit road (Alexander Rossi), a brake issue that led rookie Robert Shwartzman to run over his crew (leading to minor injuries to one crewman) and a mechanical failure for two-time defending Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden, who had driven from 33rd to sixth before his issue.<\/p>\n
That Palou and Ganassi ended up in victory lane together at Indy continued a remarkable restoration of a once-fractured relationship.<\/p>\n
In 2022, while driving for Ganassi, Palou signed a 2023 contract with McLaren in hopes of being both a full-time IndyCar driver and a reserve driver for the McLaren Formula One team \u2014 believing his talent would translate well to F1.<\/p>\n
But hours before the McLaren announcement, Ganassi said he had picked up the option on Palou\u2019s contract. At the time, Palou said the Ganassi news release was issued without his permission, and it even included a quote he said did not come from him.<\/p>\n
That sparked bad blood between Palou and Ganassi \u2014 except the relationship between Palou and McLaren turned much worse.<\/p>\n
Prior to the 2023 season, Palou reneged on the McLaren deal and ended up rejoining Ganassi. They promptly won the next two titles together and now are well on the way to a third straight, as the pairing appears to be unstoppable.<\/p>\n
McLaren, meanwhile, is suing Palou for breach of contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of the greats. It\u2019s that simple,\u201d said Ganassi, who won his sixth Indy 500. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some great drivers on our team, but he\u2019s right there \u2014 at worst, shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of them. He\u2019s clearly in that group now.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Photo: Marc Lebryk \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Alex Palou has dominated IndyCar lately, but was missing one big thing \u2014 the Indianapolis 500.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,4979,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-131879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-motorsports","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114571152232955163","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}