Ajuste perfecto: el último título de IndyCar de Alex Palou para libros de historia

Dario Franchitti freely admits he loves watching Alex Palou race.

Sure, he loves to watch Palou win. But how Palou gets it done truly impresses the four-time INDYCAR champion who has remained at Chip Ganassi Racing to coach drivers. Not that Palou needs much coaching.

“He has a beautiful driving style, which I really appreciate,” Franchitti said. “I love watching.

“He’s like playing an instrument when he drives a car.”

Palou has orchestrated a symphony that some would consider unprecedented by clinching the 2025 title Sunday at Portland International Raceway. And that’s with two more races left in the season.

He doesn’t just emulate one instrument when he’s in his ride. 

At times, he drives as smooth as a saxophone in perfect swing. When he needs to stomp, he crushes like a professional drummer. From the opening lap of the opening practice, he has played Reveille on a bugle while the competition stumbles in, waking up around him.

“It’s unprecedented in modern times, obviously,” said his team owner Chip Ganassi. “We’re really, really pleased and excited and happy watching him be a part of history.”

Ganassi has seen his drivers dominate, but not like this. While Franchitti compiled 31 victories in his INDYCAR career, he never won more than five races in a season. He once combined with Scott Dixon to win 10 races in a year for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Palou? The 28-year-old won five of the first six races of 2025 and eight of the 14 prior to Portland. A record-tying 10-win season remains a possibility for him to match A.J. Foyt and Al Unser. Palou joined the list of drivers with four championships: Foyt (seven), Dixon (six), Mario Andretti (four), Sebastien Bourdais (four) and Franchitti (four).

“It’s amazing,” Palou said. “I’m enjoying it a lot. I’m enjoying every single moment.

“It’s not that I’m not conscious about what’s going on. It’s just that I cannot really believe it, and I’m just riding the wave and enjoying every single second of it and having fun.”

It’s not just those who work within the walls of Ganassi who’ve watched this historic season in awe. Several drivers who know first-hand the feeling of dominating an open-wheel season look at what Palou has done and can’t believe what they see.

Don’t forget — all the cars come from Dallara. The engines either come from Chevrolet or Honda. He hasn’t acquired or built a car to out-engineer the competition. And Palou has, at times, outrun the field by seconds.

“I can only compare that to when someone has a big advantage car-wise in Formula 1,” said Will Power, who won six races in 2011 and has 45 career INDYCAR victories. “You don’t see that dominance in a one-make series like INDYCAR. That’s what’s so exceptional about it.

“Exceptional. You can’t deny that guy … he probably should be in Formula 1. It is just so incredible.”

Palou’s teammate Dixon, the winner of six titles with a career-best six-win season in 2008, knows he might not witness such a historic season again. 

“You just have years like that, and it just flows,” Dixon said about what he’s seen out of Palou this year. “It’s not even a confidence thing. It’s just kind of you turn up, and you expect everything to go right.”

Of course, it goes right with the strength of the team, led by longtime strategist Barry Wanser, engineer Julian Robertson and crew chief Ricky Davis. They matched setups to Palou’s ability so they could find the sweet spot of exactly how hard to push the current INDYCAR tires (both the hards and the softs). They’ve strategized to figure out how smooth to drive it to get the best fuel mileage. 

“You can’t say enough good things about what that whole group is doing,” Dixon said. “They’re just doing a better job than everybody else.”

When Palou won four of the first five races of 2025, it appeared he could have a career year. After all, he had “only” won 11 races in his first five seasons, despite earning three Astor Cup trophies as the champion.

And up until the Indianapolis 500, he had never won on an oval. So questions lingered.

When he won the 500, it answered the question about any hurdles remaining. It unleashed a driver who has now also won at Iowa.

Street course, permanent road course, superspeedway or short oval — it hasn’t mattered this season. Palou has won at them.

“I thought, to be honest, up to the Indy 500 like ‘All right, the momentum is great, everything’s falling into place,’” said Helio Castroneves, winner of four Indy 500s and 31 INDYCAR races.

“And now, it’s still there. And even then, understand seasons like this, it’s very, very, rare that it happens where you might capitalize on everything you can.”

Sure, Palou had some luck along the way. 

Some of the top competitors for the Indy 500 had mechanical issues or crashes. The caution came out at the right time for him to win at Iowa when Josef Newgarden led lap after lap after lap. For the most part, Palou and Wanser chose a strategy and it worked.

Palou has not had a mechanical failure all season. The only race he didn’t finish came at Detroit, thanks to a hit by David Malukas.

As other drivers see it, Palou shouldn’t feel guilty that he has capitalized on some breaks.

“You’ve just got to bank and take it and don’t look back,” Castroneves said.

Even if he hadn’t gotten a break here and there, Palou would still have controlled his championship destiny. Seasons like this just don’t happen. The last driver to earn eight wins in a season was Sebastien Bourdais in 2007. Before then, it was eight wins in 1994 by Al Unser Jr.

“I can’t compare it,” Ganassi said. “This guy is in a league of his own.”

For 17 consecutive seasons from 2006-2022, no driver clinched before the final race. Now Palou has done it twice and both came at Portland, with one race to go in 2023 and now two races remaining in 2025.

“What Palou is doing is so impressive in this day and age … to be that dominant” Power said. “It’s not like they’ve been lucky wins. They’ve been dominant wins.

“I like seeing that. It lifts everyone’s game. You have to study someone and understand why they are fast and what it is about their execution on race day that is allowing it to work out for them.”

Some have compared his level of dominance this year to Alex Zanardi in winning 12 races in 1997-98. Palou won his title in his sixth season, one more than it took Bourdais to earn his fourth but quicker than Foyt (seven seasons), Franchitti (14), Dixon (15) and Andretti (21).

“Certainly, all four of mine came down to the last race, and in some cases, the last lap,” Franchitti said about comparing their championship runs. “The last one I remember with that level [of dominance] es zanardi. Es algo bastante. “

Graham RahalUn veterano de 19 años de la serie, vio a su padre, Bobby Rahal, ganó seis carreras en 1986.

“Es impresionante”, dijo Rahal. “Ahora es más impresionante que incluso en el tiempo de mi padre porque hay una mayor separación entre los equipos y la capacidad de competir en ese momento”.

Rahal señaló que había cierta separación entre Ganassi y toda la red este año. Señaló al Dixon entre el año en que el líder en las clasificaciones y la clara mejora del joven conductor Kyffin Simpson.

“Esos autos eran obviamente un paso antes que todos los demás”, dijo Rahal. “Es una realidad. Pero Alex lo maximiza en cada etapa”.

En una serie de carreras, cuando un piloto o equipo muestra tales dominantes, el susurro se está haciendo cada vez más grande a pesar de que tienen algunas ventajas injustas. Pero nadie parece pensar.

“Puedo prometerle que no hay fraude descarado”, dijo Power. “Ese grupo está muy bien. El conductor está bien. Solo hace un trabajo extremadamente bueno”.

Muy pocos conductores saben ese sentimiento. AJ General Habiendo ganado cinco carreras de campeonato en 2006 durante una serie de ruedas abiertas competitivas.

Dijo que no recibió la complacencia, y para Palou, la capacidad de no correr conservador solo para ganar un título que lo ayudó a aplastar la competencia.

“Es extraordinario ver lo que está haciendo porque siento que, como una serie de la Copa, puedes debatir a IndyCar como la serie más competitiva del mundo en este momento y solo destruye a las personas”, dijo Allmendinger.

“Solo recuerdo haber ganado esas carreras, solo necesitas entrar en la pista con mucha confianza, saber que todos, cuando entran, te miran, diciendo ‘¿Cómo derrotamos a este tipo?'”

Pueden mirar algunos problemas, dijo Allmendinger.

“Simplemente no ves el dominio en Indysar por un conductor específico”, dijo Allmendinger. “Es bastante especial de ver.

“Conozco a todos ellos, tal vez un poco incómodos. Pero poder ver la grandeza porque está sucediendo es lo que realmente me gusta”.

Es especialmente el punto de vista de las personas dentro de Ganassi, incluso para aquellos que tienen el récord final que puede romperse.

Como dijo Franchitti, Palou condujo como si tocara un instrumento. Pero todavía está buscando una manera de hacer que el sonido sea más suave que nunca, incluso más agudo.

“Desde el punto de vista del grupo y desde el punto de vista del conductor, es muy impresionante”, dijo Franchitti. “Alex continuó actuando en su nivel extremadamente alto, pero aún buscó más.

“Seguía haciendo preguntas, seguía haciendo, seguía buscando formas de mejorarse. Era un paquete infernal”.

Bob Pockrass incluye NASCAR e IndodyCar para Fox Sports. Pasó décadas, incluidos deportes de carreras, incluidos más de 30 Daytona 500, con piezas en ESPN, Noticias de Sports, Magazine de Escena NASCAR y revista News (Daytona Beach). Síguelo en Twitter @Bobpock.

---

---