While Zak Brown continues to blame anything and everything that goes wrong within McLaren on Alex Palou not joining the team in 2024, the lawsuit between McLaren and the four-time IndyCar champion and reigning Indy 500 winner is slowly but surely headed toward a resolution.
First things first; this really started with Palou not being able to violate the terms of his Chip Ganassi Racing contract and join the organization in 2023. Of course, he wanted to, and he tried to, he has since admitted that he regrets how he handled the situation.
He also regrets how he handled 2023, when he signed a valid contract to join McLaren in 2024, but decided to stay put at Chip Ganassi Racing.
Palou was under the impression that he was in contention for a seat with the McLaren Formula 1 team; he would not have left his championship-winning No. 10 team for a lateral-at-best move within the IndyCar paddock, and everyone, including Brown, knew it, whether he wants to admit it (he doesn't) or not.
Oscar Piastri got the seat for 2023, however, and Palou knew he had no shot afterward, so the decision to want to stay put, given the fact that what he claims was on the table was no longer on the table, was understandable.
So the fact that we are supposed to believe that the convenient disappearing messages from McLaren don't incriminate themselves is objectively hilarious, but not surprising, given some of Brown's other shady behavior over the years.
Gavin Ward is the one who claimed in a message that McLaren uses WhatsApp's disappearing messages function to "cover their ass on lawsuits", and as it turns out, he was relieved of his post as team principal just two days after he revealed it in a now widely shared screenshot. Interesting; make of that what you will.
One of the reasons McLaren are trying to squeeze more money out of Palou than Palou has to give is their claim that they lost sponsorship deals when he decided to stay at Chip Ganassi Racing (and win three straight championships since).
Nolan Siegel 'one of the worst drivers' in IndyCar
Interestingly, when they signed Nolan Siegel to be their third full-time driver in the middle of the 2024 season, even after having already signed Theo Pourchaire to drive the No. 6 Chevrolet for the rest of the year, they claimed he was not signed for money.
The lawsuit revealed that to be false.
While they can claim all they want that they signed Siegel for his talent, the fact that he is indeed a pay driver, coupled with his lackluster results, prove otherwise.
In 2025, Pato O'Ward finished second in the championship with three wins; Christian Lundgaard finished fifth in his first season with the team. Siegel has just three top 10 finishes in 26 starts and finished 22nd of 27 full-time drivers in the 2025 standings, racking up five DNFs in 16 races.
Palou's team argued that McLaren have already made up any losses that may have come from Palou's decision to renege on his deal by signing Siegel and taking his money, given the fact that there are plenty of other better options available.
They even went as far as calling Siegel "one of the worst drivers on the grid" in one of the most brutal takedowns of the offseason.
“McLaren has been happy to settle with Mr. Siegel in Car #6 because recruiting a pay driver for that seat was itself a step taken to mitigate any losses (including such losses as might otherwise flow from the fact that Mr. Siegel is one of the worst drivers on the grid),” court documents from Palou's team read.
“By recruiting Mr. Siegel, McLaren Indy has in fact mitigated its loss entirely. That is in turn precisely the reason why McLaren has proven happy to sit back and take Mr. Siegel’s money for as long as the contract provides for the same, as opposed to continue shopping in the driver market for an even better driver.”
McLaren's decision-making process here also explains why they were so quick to release David Malukas after his broken wrist in 2024, before he ever made a start for the team.
Their goal, all along, was to blame Palou. And with Malukas not being considered an "A-level" driver, they were accused by Palou's legal team of rushing his signing just to say that not having Palou cost them even more money.
This is a team that, at one point in 2024, had made more driver changes over a 15-month stretch than Team Penske in a 15-year stretch.
Yet with Siegel, they seem to have all kinds of patience, even though they literally could have had any one of Malukas, Pourchaire, Felix Rosenqvist, Alexander Rossi, or Callum Ilott, plus several others not directly tied to the team, in that car.
And on a semi-related side note, they might have to pay for their decision even more next year and beyond, with Malukas having signed with Team Penske to replace Will Power.
Surely that's also Palou's fault, though. Because that's how it works when you try to cheat the top driver in the sport out of $20.7 million.