After Alex Palou’s title-clinching win at the Portland Grand Prix, Chip Ganassi was asked whether the now two-times champion will return to race for his team in 2024.
“Alex Palou is going to be in our car, I can tell you that for sure.” Ganassi replied confidently.
“He’s part of our team. We couldn’t be more happy about that. He likes to win, he likes to be at the front.”
“We noticed that with his first race win at Barber three years ago. We knew the guy was special.”
It’s a statement that wouldn’t have seemed possible even a month ago, let alone in the immediate aftermath of an explosive contract controversy between Palou, Ganassi, and his prospective new employer McLaren.
It was a year-long saga that began when Palou took to social media to publicly refute quotes published in his name, refuse a contract extension with Ganassi, then sign a pre-contract with McLaren with the presumption of allowing him an opportunity to race in Formula 1. A lawsuit filed by Ganassi against his driver followed, which was later settled out of court. Palou stayed on board with Ganassi for 2023, but the feeling throughout most of Palou’s third season at Ganassi was that he was going to join McLaren the following year.
But suddenly, on the eve of last month’s race at Indianapolis, Palou broke his agreement with McLaren. He also split from his agency Monaco Increase Management, while Ganassi took McLaren CEO Zak Brown to task in a scathing public statement.
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Palou’s agreement with McLaren – and even the breaking of said agreement – was always speculated to have been with his long-harboured Formula 1 aspirations in mind. As a McLaren F1 reserve driver, Palou made an FP1 appearance at the 2022 United States Grand Prix and drove earlier cars several times under F1’s Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) rules after the conclusion of last year’s IndyCar season.
This summer, F1 transfer market rumours linked Palou to midfield constructors such as Williams and AlphaTauri. Lando Norris is contracted to remain at McLaren until the end of 2025 while his rookie team mate Oscar Piastri (who went through a similar contract dispute of his own with McLaren, who prevailed on that occasion) has impressed and is expected to be retained.
In the words of the two-time champion himself, Palou seems more than content with building a legacy in IndyCar as a future legend at this stage in his career.
“I said it many times that [Formula 1] was not my full focus,” Palou said after Sunday’s victory. “Then, when an opportunity came, I had to go for it, I felt.
“At the same time I know I’m not 21 or 19. I’m already 26, which is good. I’m not saying I’m old, but I mean, it’s not that I’m super young. Next year I’ll be 27.
“If an opportunity comes in the future, which is like really, really small chances, I’ll think about it for sure, 100 percent.
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“But I’m happy, honestly. As long as I keep on winning championships and races, or battling for championships, I think I’ll have a great career.”
Unless Palou has yet another sudden change of heart, he seems committed to winning more races and championships with Ganassi. And that’s good news for IndyCar and its fans – even the ones who’ve said they no longer like or care for Palou after the latest contract dispute with McLaren.
If Palou never gets that F1 opportunity it would leave many wondering ‘what could have been’. No driver has ever made the step to F1 directly out of a major American open-wheel championship since Sebastien Bourdais in 2008 – and Palou’s IndyCar championships, combined with his previous experience racing single-seaters in Europe and Japan, would make him as fit and proper of an F1 candidate as any that have come along in recent years.
This mutual commitment doesn’t mean Palou’s contractual woes are over, as he now faces legal action from McLaren Racing and its IndyCar team (as separate entities) who are reportedly seeking hefty damages.
Palou responded to these lawsuits in part by saying that he would one day write a tell-all book about the wrangling for his racing future, and he brought that up again during Sunday’s post-race press conference. “Obviously after Laguna [Seca] I will try and speak a little bit more, but I’m going to enjoy as much as possible the win from today, the championship, and then we’ll see,” Palou said.
“I started actually my first page on the book, so that thing is going well! I don’t really have anything else to say now. There’s no news. There’s nothing else I could tell you now that is exciting or anything. But I will.”
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