IndyCar's 'flashier Scott Dixon' is on a GOAT-like trajectory

In the second IndyCar race he ever finished back in July 2020, Alex Palou piloted his No. 55 Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh Honda to third place at Road America, continuing Dale Coyne's incredible streak of having at least one of his drivers on the podium each year he had at least one full-time competitor.

The next day, Felix Rosenqvist piloted his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to victory lane at the same venue, marking his first career IndyCar win and the first for the No. 10 entry, which had won three straight titles with Dario Franchitti from 2009 to 2011, since 2014.

Rosenqvist made the shocking decision to leave Ganassi for Arrow McLaren at the end of the year, a move that left Chip Ganassi Racing in need of a new driver to pair with newly minted six-time champion Scott Dixon.

Ganassi picked the 16th place finisher in the 2020 championship standings: Alex Palou.

It was somewhat of an unexpected announcement, and as we had seen for a number of years of the post-Franchitti era, driving the No. 10 entry did not guarantee success. Perhaps the best example was Ed Jones, who was dropped for Rosenqvist after just one year in 2018, a year in which he arguably performed worse than he did as a rookie for Coyne the year before.

Palou experienced no such struggles.

Even with only three top 10 finishes to his name, he immediately got up to speed and won his first race with Ganassi at Barber Motorsports Park. But there was still some skepticism after his 17th place finish in the following race on the streets of St. Petersburg, and his relatively quiet doubleheader at Texas Motor Speedway, that perhaps he was not yet a true title threat with the top team.

Then he took Helio Castroneves down to the wire in only his second ever Indy 500 attempt, placing second behind the fourth driver in the history of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" to win it for a fourth time.

It was solidified: even with only one career win, Palou was the real deal.

Later in the year, Palou added two more wins at Road America and Portland International Raceway, and he entered the season finale with a relatively comfortable championship lead en route to sealing his first title.

He had a "down" season in 2022, highlighted by contract drama when both Chip Ganassi Racing and McLaren announced that they had signed him for 2023. Palou himself intended to leave for McLaren, with the hope of competing in Formula 1 in the seat alongside Lando Norris that was ultimately handed to Oscar Piastri after the team sacked Daniel Ricciardo a year early.

Even after Ganassi won that particular battle for 2023, Palou still intended to leave for McLaren in 2024.

But as it became obvious that his chance for the McLaren Formula 1 seat was all but out the window, compounded by the fact that the whole Piastri/Ricciardo timeline indicated that he was never truly in the running, he opted against it, as it would have amounted to nothing more than a lateral-at-best IndyCar team swap.

To this day, there is still ongoing litigation surrounding his decision, and to say there is bad blood from Zak Brown's perspective would be a massive understatement.

Yet even in 2022, Palou sent a warning shot to everybody by winning the season finale at Laguna Seca. After starting outside the top 10, he won by more than 30 seconds. Even if he only finished in fifth place in the championship standings and hadn't won in a full calendar year when he finally got back to victory lane, it was an alarming win for the rest of the grid.

Then came 2023, when he became the first driver since Dan Wheldon in 2005 (Sebastien Bourdais in 2007, if you include Champ Car) to clinch a championship before the season finale. He did not finish lower than eighth place all year and won a series-high five of 17 races, including three in a row and four out of five at one point.

His 2024 season wasn't nearly as dominant, yet like he did in 2021, he entered the season finale with a comfortable championship lead, and the title was effectively decided as soon as Will Power's seatbelt came undone in the opening laps at Nashville Superspeedway.

It took only two races in 2025 for him to match his 2024 win total, and the way he turned a 12-second deficit into a 10-second victory over Pato O'Ward in a race that saw zero caution flags at Thermal Club was a sensational performance that may have been his best yet.

Alex Palou: A flashier Scott Dixon?

Palou has long given a ton of credit for his success to Dixon, whose 58 wins and six titles both rank second on their respective all-time lists.

“Oh, everything," the 27-year-old Spaniard told Beyond the Flag after winning his third title back in September, when asked what he has been able to absorb from Dixon since joining the team in 2021. "He's a great part of the team's success, of my success. I wouldn't be here today without Scott Dixon in the team.

"What have I been able to absorb? Everything, man, like how to think, how to prepare the car, how to push, how to go faster, how to go slower when you have to go slower, how to do stuff – I'm still learning every day that he goes out on track, and I go out on track and I can compare stuff to him. He's still the leader of our team.”

Dixon has long been known as the "Ice Man", for his ability to stay calm under pressure, come through when the odds appear stacked against him, and make fuel strategies work that literally don't work for any other driver. He is also known for turning bad races into decent results and decent races into podium finishes.

Now 44 years old, he is still a championship contender each year, and his 20-year win streak is a record that may never be matched. Simply put, Scott Dixon is still doing Scott Dixon things, all these years later.

Now with Palou having won three out of four championships, including two in a row, since joining Chip Ganassi Racing, his similar abilities have landed him comparisons to Dixon on more than one occasion.

But after his 13th career victory at Thermal Club, he may have just solidified himself as an even flashier Dixon; he has just as much, if not more, talent, and he possesses the innate ability to make even more incredible things happen that simply shouldn't be possible – more specifically, things that aren't possible for anybody else.

A lot of fans have compared Dixon to someone like Tom Brady for several years now. During the back half of his career, it seemed like every year there were doubters. Yet every single year, those doubters were silenced in some way, shape or form.

Both athletes have effectively had three Hall of Fame-worthy careers in one: one in their 20s, one in their 30s, and one in their 40s.

But even the seven-time Super Bowl champion had his playoff nemeses. He was 1-5 in conference championship games and Super Bowls against the Manning brothers, specifically 1-3 against Peyton in AFC title deciders and 0-2 against Eli in the "Big Game".

Can you imagine how many rings Brady would have if Archie and Olivia Manning had never met?

Dixon has his championship nemeses, too. And Palou is one of them.

As Franchitti's teammate, he won just one title in five years; Franchitti won three, and Dixon's title came in Franchitti's final year, which was cut short due to a career-ending crash on the streets of Houston. Franchitti also won two Indy 500s during that stretch, including one in which Dixon finished second.

Now there is Palou, who has won three titles in four years and hasn't finished beneath Dixon in the point standings since contract drama was all anybody associated him with three seasons ago.

Dixon, for as good as he is, hasn't won since Palou was regularly competing in the mid-field for Coyne, and it he doesn't overcome the 41-point hole Palou has already put him it through two of the 2025 season's 17 races, it will mark the first time he has ever gone five straight years without a championship.

And for as much respect as he has for Dixon, Palou considers his veteran teammate his biggest rival.

All things considered, the success of his teammates does nothing to diminish Dixon's legacy, the same way Brady is and always will be the GOAT.

Dixon finds ways to win races and has done it consistently, and objectively speaking, he has done it in a much more competitive era than somebody like A.J. Foyt, the only driver he trails in career wins (67) and titles (seven). The fact that he's done it for as long as he has adds to that fact. And he can probably keep going.

But what it undoubtedly does do, to an even greater extent, is elevate Palou, whose 28th birthday was earlier this week, into consideration as one of the all-time IndyCar greats, just a half-decade after most IndyCar fans were still learning how to pronounce his name.

If he can finally (okay, he's only competed five times) win an Indy 500, it would not be premature to put him in the top 10. After all, Dixon has only won the race once himself. About the only thing Palou hasn't done is win an oval race, and he is always a contender at Indy.

Regardless, the driver of the DHL-sponsored Honda is a rare talent whose current trajectory has him on pace to one day be in Dixon territory when it comes to his position among all-time greats.

The fact that he has already won more titles than a long list of drivers who have far more career victories, even active drivers such as Will Power (44 wins) and Josef Newgarden (31), shows just how rapid that ascent has been.