Since Alex Palou arrived at Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021, nobody has been better. He won the 2021 championship, became the first driver to clinch a title before the season finale since 2005 in 2023, and became the first repeat champion since 2010 in 2024.
And through the first five races of the 2025 season, Palou has an average finish of 1.2: four wins, plus a runner-up finish. His championship lead is already the size of roughly two full race wins.
But as Palou prepares to make his sixth Indy 500 start in the 109th running of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" this weekend, he spoke to Beyond the Flag about the fact that the hybrid era, which began in the middle of the 2024 season, didn't necessarily get off to a super-hot start.
"We got the pole at Mid-Ohio, which was the first qualifying with a hybrid, so we thought, ‘oh man, the hybrid is good for us’, and then uh we didn't win a race last year since the hybrid was introduced at Mid-Ohio," Palou explained.
Indeed, both of Palou's 2024 points-paying wins, plus his exhibition race victory, came before the hybrid was introduced. His final win of the year at Laguna Seca came in the final pre-hybrid race.
"So we were kind of, I wouldn’t say worried," Palou said about his nine-race win drought to end the 2024 season. "But obviously we knew that there was a piece missing that we needed to figure out with the car and myself."
Perhaps that winless streak gave the rest of the field a sense of false hope entering the 2025 season, because earlier this season, Palou at one point won more races between caution flags than he did all of last year.
"It’s more I think what the driver needs from the car this year, we clicked on," Palou continued. "And it feels that it’s working good for us, so yeah, happy that we got it and excited to hopefully continue on the performance we’ve had."
And no, Palou isn't worried about the fact that he hasn't yet won on an oval. At all. His track record at venues with exclusively left turns is about as good as it gets among those without an oval win, and it includes an Indy 500 runner-up finish, an Indy 500 pole, plus several other podium finishes.
Even if he does manage to win the Indy 500, he isn't worried about saying "I told you so" to those who continue to bring up this point.
"Not for them; it's more for me, just for being like ‘hey Alex, yeah, you're capable of doing it,’, right?" he stated. "I never have the motivation of telling somebody that ‘I won it, and you told me that I would never win it.’
"It's more for me and for my people, like ‘yeah man, we just did it, and this is awesome, and let's do it again,’ because once you win the first one, the second one feels so much easier, because you already know that you're capable of doing it and it just happens with a normal race as well in IndyCar.
"My first race, it took like a year to win, and then the second one came really fast after that, and I think that's just because you start trusting yourself more, start trusting your team more, and you can see it in the results."
Palou is confident heading into this year's Indy 500, especially after Honda closed the gap to Chevrolet in qualifying. After Chevrolet swept last year's top eight, Honda took four of the top six this year.
"Yeah, absolutely," Palou said. "I think we were actually quite close in race trim, but we struggled a lot on the high boost in qualifying, but this year, I think it was clear to see that the Hondas made a big step up on qualifying, and I think we should be fine. I don’t think the manufacturer is going to play a role in who wins the race. What I mean is that there's no favorite to win the race from a manufacturer standpoint."
As a driver who has completely turned around his hybrid performance in 2025, the three-time and two-time reigning series champion is already focused on how the added weight will affect overtaking at a track where, despite having started up front and finished up front more often than not, he has had to pass a lot of cars in past Indy 500s.
"At the beginning of the runs, it kind of makes it tough, but then at the end of the run, it makes it easier, because the tires degrade more and you're going to see bigger speed differences," Palou explained.
"At the same time, I think that it's a lot closer at the front than it's ever been, but there's a bigger gap with the cars that are slower, if that makes sense. So I think to move up to like top 15 can be maybe easier, but to move further than that it's going to take some more laps.
In 2022, Palou was sent from the lead to 30th after the pits closed at an inconvenient caution during a fuel stint, and in 2023, he was sent from the lead to 30th after contact with Rinus VeeKay in the pits. He finished those races in ninth and fourth, respectively.
He believes that the drivers who are set to start 32nd and 33rd, Team Penske teammates Josef Newgarden and Will Power, will not have much of an issue doing something similar.
"For sure, yeah, no doubt," he said.
Having said that, Palou is still happy to be in the position he's in, and not just because he is set to start in sixth place, nine rows ahead of those two former Indy 500 winners. Unlike them, he has enjoyed a distraction-free week as far as the off-track drama is concerned.
"It's good, yeah," Palou said. "We were still very busy with the media stuff and just rebuilding the cars and getting ready for the race, but yeah, obviously glad that we didn't have to focus on off-track stuff like other people."
Palou is one of very, very few drivers who made their Indy 500 debuts in front of an empty race track, as he was a rookie in 2020. Then in 2021, the capacity was limited. In 2022, 2023, and 2024, the grandstands were back to being what they usually are.
But in 2025? The Indy 500 is sold out for the first time since the 100th running in 2016.
"You have butterflies," Palou admitted. "We're used to seeing, we've been here for a month almost, and you see the grandstands empty every day except like qualifying days, when we had quite a lot of people, but still, if you look around, there are a lot of free spots. But on race day, it's not like that. Race day, it's going to be full. Every chair is going to be filled, and I cannot wait, man. It’s exciting.
He just hopes that there are more cheers than boos when his named is called as the second row is introduced.
"I think it’s exciting for the series, it’s exciting for the fans, and at that moment you feel like you’re the center of the world. They’re going to say my name in front of like 350,000 or more people, and hopefully they cheer for it. Maybe we get some boos, but that’s going to be good as well, and they're going to be welcome."
Palou never got to attend the Indy 500 as a fan before competing it for the first time in 2020.
"Unfortunately not," he said. "It’s really bad timing for Europe racing, when I was racing in Europe. I used to race the same weekend, so I've never had the opportunity to come here and watch as a fan."
But he always found time to watch the race on television.
"Many times, many years," he said. "I would say more than 10 years before being here."
Scott Dixon heaps praise on Alex Palou
While Palou has been asked many times about what he has been able to learn from his six-time champion teammate Scott Dixon since joining Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021, Dixon himself admits that he has been able to learn a lot from Palou during their four-plus years together.
"Yeah, absolutely," Dixon stated. "It’s non-stop, and I think that's what's quite fun about the sport. It never stops. It's a constant moving target, and I think that's what keeps it fresh. I think with a lot of these younger guys, Alex especially, who's gotten off to an amazing start to the season, his driving style, a lot of the basics that were probably what I was used to, have changed now, the way that the tire reacts, now that the car is super heavy.
"My driving style, I would kind of label it as quite aggressive: heavy inputs, a lot of reaction, a lot of moving the car around. With Alex, he's especially very smooth, under control, so I’m having to try to learn a lot of those things, because we've seen in the last year or two, especially with the hybrid, it reacts totally differently to what you need to be doing as far as driver inputs.
"But he's a hell of a talent."
It's high praise coming from a driver who is second on the all-time IndyCar wins list and second on the all-time IndyCar championships list. Given the era in which Dixon, who is also set to start Sunday's race on the second row in fourth, has racked up his 58 wins and six titles, you could certainly make the case for him as the IndyCar "GOAT".
And if Palou continues on his current trajectory, perhaps a similar case can be made for him sometime down the road.
"I think, not just his speed," Dixon continued, "but I think the way he pieces everything together, he's just the full package, and I think that's why we've seen the success that we have. So for me, it's really great to see and be a part of, but it's also not so great, because we haven't been winning on the same side of it! But no, he's a hell of a competitor, and I'm very lucky to be a teammate with him."
The 109th running of the Indy 500 is set to be shown live on Fox from Indianapolis Motor Speedway this Sunday, May 25 beginning at 10:00 a.m. ET. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing"!