Palou era becomes official after Portland title wrap-up

The Alex Palou Era was made official on Sunday at Portland International Raceway where the Spaniard and his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda team completed a season for the ages.

Clinching three championships in a row and four championships in five seasons was made possible by the eight victories scored by Palou and his CGR squad led by team manager and race strategist Barry Wanser, race engineer Julian Robertson and crew chief Ricky Davis.

Palou’s achievement adds to the remarkable run of success produced by Ganassi where the Indianapolis-based team has won 13 of its 17 championships since the turn of the century. Three were produced in the 2000s followed by five in the 2010s and five so far from 2020-2025.

Of all the statistics generated over that span, none is more impressive than the manner in which two of the last five have been created. Palou’s teammate Scott Dixon captured his sixth IndyCar championship while leading the 2020 championship from the opening race to the last. The New Zealander’s feat was a first in IndyCar history where a team led the entire season with a single driver, and Ganassi made history again by doubling the accomplishment as Palou just led the entirety of the 2025 season without ceding the top spot in the Drivers’ standings.

Ganassi’s 17th IndyCar championship draws the team level with Team Penske, produced at a rapid rate with the 17 coming in 36 years of IndyCar competition. Penske’s 17 titles, with the most recent occurring in 2022 with Will Power, were taken over 49 years.

Like his team’s 17 in 36, Palou’s championship run with four championships fits another rapid statistic where everything has been achieved in fewer than 100 races; Portland marked his 96th start in the series. If those stats weren’t enough to process, August 10 is the 413th day in a row where Palou was classified first in the Drivers’ standings. It will increase to 427 in two weeks’ time at Milwaukee.

The Spaniard's rapid rise to IndyCar dominance can only be described as a blur. Joe Skibinski/IMS Photo

Among the other notable data points, Palou is only the fourth driver in the 100-plus years of IndyCar racing to win three consecutive championships, joining Ted Horn (1946-‘48) and Ganassi’s Dario Franchitti (2009-‘11) as three-timers; Sebastien Bourdais sits atop the group with the four straight (2004-‘07). Franchitti also won four straight, but they weren’t consecutive as his 2007 title with Andretti Global was followed by a 2008 season spent in NASCAR.

Palou made the transition to IndyCar in 2020 after working his way through the European junior open-wheel ladder system and landing in Japan where he contested the Super Formula and Super GT championships in 2019. In a partnership between his Super GT entrant Kazumichi Goh and Illinois-based Dale Coyne Racing, Palou made his IndyCar debut and quickly impressed with a podium in his third race and a qualifying performance at the Indianapolis 500 that earned seventh place on his first try.

Signed by Ganassi in the offseason, Palou replaced Felix Rosenqvist who won one race in the No. 10 Honda and finished 11th in the championship before making the surprise announcement that he’d be leaving to drive for Arrow McLaren. Coming off a rookie season where Ganassi’s Scott Dixon won the title in 2020, Palou arrived as an unremarkable addition to backfill the seat vacated by Rosenqvist. The Swede was not only highly rated by the No. 10 crew, but proved to be a perfect fit next to Dixon as a spirited performer next to its six-time champion.

Palou sent a message by winning his first race for Ganassi as the 2021 season opened, and by the 14th and final race, he’d won a total of three races and stood on the podium at 50 percent of the events on the way securing his first title. A down year in 2022 where contractual and legal dramas proved to be constant distractions saw a drop to fifth in the standings, and with the contract matters resolved in a new multi-year deal done with Ganassi, the 2023 season went into overdrive.

Five victories and 10 podiums from 17 races propelled Palou to a year of runaway success and a sizable championship win with 78 points over Dixon and 168 over third-place, Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin, that settled the title in Portland with one race left to go.

Compared to the previous year, Palou’s championship in 2024 was more modest with two wins, but 13 points hauls inside the top five kept his rivals at bay and ensured a third championship was locked.

Then the 2025 season opened with Palou staking his claim on snatching a fourth IndyCar crown by winning five of the opening six races, including his first victory at the Indianapolis 500. It was an early and devastating blow to the rest of the title contenders as Palou amassed a lead of 112 points after six races – the kind of margin normally found after 12 events with a breakaway driver – and it swelled to 131 entering Portland.

Starting from pole, Arrow McLaren's Pato O'Ward was running a few positions ahead of Palou until an electrical malfunction caused a complete loss of power and cost mjultiple laps while the problem was traced to a faulty wire and rectified. At the finish line, Palou was third and O'Ward was relegated to 25th, nine laps down.

Alex Palou, IndyCar’s new champion of champions.