{"id":488506,"date":"2025-10-10T14:09:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488506\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T14:09:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:09:15","slug":"mclaren-contract-based-on-lies-about-f1-seat-alex-palou-tells-high-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488506\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren contract \u2018based on lies\u2019 about F1 seat, Alex Palou tells High Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mr Palou and two companies connected to him are being sued for around 21 million US dollars (\u00a315.5 million) by McLaren Indy LLC and McLaren Racing, which run the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team and McLaren\u2019s F1 team.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard agreed in 2022 that he would drive for Arrow McLaren in 2024, 2025 and 2026, but breached the deal in 2023.<\/p>\n

Mr Palou admits to the breach but disputes that he should pay damages at a trial in London.<\/p>\n

\"SpanishAlex Palou, centre, said McLaren showed a \u2018lack of commitment\u2019 to getting him into F1 (Jordan Pettitt\/PA)<\/p>\n

Giving evidence in court, the four-time IndyCar champion said he only signed for McLaren as \u201call I was interested in was the F1 opportunity\u201d and \u201cmy goal was to follow my dream and drive in F1\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his witness statement, he said that McLaren Racing chief executive Zak Brown \u201ctold me he believed we could make it happen and that he would give me all the preparation I needed to be an F1 driver for McLaren\u201d.<\/p>\n

The driver said that shortly after announcing he would be driving for Arrow McLaren in the summer of 2022, he saw tweets from current McLaren F1 driver Oscar Piastri that the Australian would be joining its F1 team.<\/p>\n

Mr Palou said this was the \u201cfirst time things changed\u201d and left him feeling \u201cvery upset, worried and angry\u201d, despite this being before he signed the McLaren deal in October 2022.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI now consider that Zak made me think that there was an opportunity to have the full-time F1 seat as a negotiating tactic to get me to sign for McLaren\u2019s IndyCar team.\u201d<\/p>\n

In court, Mr Palou said that McLaren \u201cdid not tell me the truth\u201d and was \u201cmisleading me\u201d over whether he would be offered an F1 seat, which led him to return to his former team, Chip Ganassi Racing, in 2023.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIf I need to stay in IndyCar, then I need to stay with a team that gave me the chance to be an IndyCar champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I had the right to terminate an agreement that was based on lies and false impressions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Goulding KC, for McLaren, said to Mr Palou that under the terms of the 2022 deal, the company had a \u201cright but not an obligation\u201d to put him into F1.<\/p>\n

The barrister said: \u201cEven though you signed a contract, you had no intention of doing that (driving for Arrow McLaren) if F1 did not work out for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Palou replied: \u201cMy intention was to get to F1, following all the opportunities that Mr Brown said I was going to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked by Mr Goulding whether he had \u201cmisled McLaren and Zak Brown through all of this\u201d, Mr Palou said: \u201cAll I was interested in was the F1 opportunity, but getting all these opportunities would have led me to be happy and led me to get what I was promised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Goulding later asked the driver whether he had \u201cstrung McLaren along\u201d, to which Mr Palou said: \u201cAbsolutely not. I think you are twisting the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his witness statement, Mr Palou said that McLaren showed a \u201clack of commitment\u201d to getting him into F1, despite his contract making him an F1 reserve driver.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old said: \u201cI had the F1 reserve role, but I did not really see the commitment from Zak any more to get me to F1 full-time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not feel that those plans were genuine.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his evidence, Mr Brown said Mr Palou \u201ceffectively rolled a grenade into the room and let it go off\u201d through his departure.<\/p>\n

\"ZakZak Brown, chief executive officer of McLaren Racing, attended the Rolls Building earlier this week (Lucy North\/PA)<\/p>\n

He also said that while he believed Mr Palou could be a \u201creal talent\u201d in F1, the driver knew that he was \u201cunable to make promises\u201d about an F1 career, and \u201calways knew exactly what the opportunities were and were not\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Goulding previously told the trial in written submissions that Mr Palou was a \u201cserial contract breaker\u201d and that his departure had \u201cserious and enduring consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is seeking millions that it claims arose from the renegotiation of sponsorship deals, lost future revenue and other sums.<\/p>\n

Nick De Marco KC, for Mr Palou, said in written submissions that the renegotiation of sponsorship deals was not \u201canywhere near as bad\u201d as had been claimed, and that the damages claim was \u201cvastly inflated\u201d.<\/p>\n

The trial before Mr Justice Picken is due to conclude in November, with a judgment expected in writing at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr Palou and two companies connected to him are being sued for around 21 million US dollars (\u00a315.5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-488506","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-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115350271780805028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488506","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=488506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}