He arrived from Spain by way of Japan and rocked American open-wheel racing.
In five fast years, Álex Palou has created an IndyCar legacy to match some of the sport’s greatest athletes, his latest triumph produced Sunday in Music City. Like Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs with Super Bowls wins in 2019, 2022 and 2023 — or Steph Curry with the Golden State Warriors and NBA titles in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022 — Palou has joined an exclusive club of modern athletes to stack up several major championships in impossibly short timespans.
Having captured four of the past five IndyCar crowns, the Chip Ganassi Racing team is sitting on what would be described as a dynasty in any other sport. Starting with Scott Dixon in 2020 and then Palou in 2021, 2023 and 2024, something dynastic is indeed taking place within IndyCar. Other than the 2022 championship that went to Team Penske’s Will Power, Ganassi has owned this decade.
More like Curry than Mahomes, Palou landed in the big leagues of IndyCar with minimal fanfare. He impressed on occasion while chasing dreams of reaching Formula 1, but there were no serious takers among the Ferraris, Red Bulls or tail-end teams. A chance to race in Japan was next — albeit nowhere near the heart of grand prix racing — and he shone in the Super Formula series, enough so that his team owner Kazumichi Goh decided to help fund a foray into the U.S. in IndyCar with the modest Dale Coyne Racing team. Goh is the one who kept Palou’s budding career afloat.
His rookie season with Dale Coyne gave Ganassi a chance to watch from afar as Palou placed a respectable 16th out of 23 full-time IndyCar entries in the 2020 championship. Despite lacking familiarity with the tracks and having no knowledge of the unique artform of American oval racing, the Spaniard showed promise amid the steep learning curves. In a similar vein to Curry playing mid-major college basketball at Davidson, Palou caught the eye of insiders who saw the potential in Japan and in his maiden IndyCar season, but it didn’t build a lot of fanfare or incite bidding wars for his services.
With the surprise departure of Ganassi driver Felix Rosenqvist after the 2020 season and slim pickings among proven, veteran…
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