IndyCar: The two legends Alex Palou credits for his meteoric rise

It took Alex Palou just four seasons at Chip Ganassi Racing to win three IndyCar championships after emerging as a relatively unknown prospect with Dale Coyne Racing w/Team Goh as a rookie in 2020.

Chip Ganassi Racing had initially planned on holding onto Felix Rosenqvist, the 2019 Rookie of the Year and a race winner at Road America in 2020, but they turned to Palou when Rosenqvist confirmed his departure to Arrow McLaren.

Palou, who recorded a podium finish in just the second race he finished as a rookie, took over behind the wheel of the No. 10 Honda in 2021, and he won in his first start at Barber Motorsports Park. He added two more wins and won the championship.

In 2022, contract drama dominated the headlines, with Palou himself having attempted to leave Chip Ganassi's team for McLaren in 2023, and his performance simply wasn't what it was in 2021. He had to settle for fifth place in the championship standings, though he did close out the year with a record-breaking victory of more than 30 seconds at Laguna Seca which would set the tone for 2023.

In 2023, Palou became IndyCar's first five-win champion since Simon Pagenaud in 2016, and by becoming the first driver to finish no lower than eighth place in a single race in more than a century, he became the first driver since Sebastien Bourdais in 2007 (Dan Wheldon in 2005 if you exclude Champ Car) to secure a title before the season finale.

This past year, Palou only won two races, but it didn't matter. Like the case was in 2021 and 2023, even if you had turned all of his race wins into runner-up finishes and made the runners-up in each race the new winners, his consistency throughout the rest of the schedule was such that he still would have been crowned champion.

The 27-year-old Spaniard trails only teammate Scott Dixon in championships among active drivers, and he has beaten the six-time champion in three of four years. Dixon has not won a title since 2020, when Palou was still a rookie competing for Dale Coyne.

Only A.J. Foyt has more wins and championships than Dixon on the all-time lists, and considering much of Dixon's success has come in an era that many believe has been the most competitive in American open-wheel racing, he is considered one of the top drivers of all-time.

It makes Palou's run even more impressive, and he gives Dixon a lot of credit for it.

“Oh, everything," he told Beyond the Flag when asked what he has been able to absorb from the 58-time race winner since joining the team nearly four years ago. "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."

He reiterated that point.

"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.”

He also credits Dario Franchitti, who had been the most recent back-to-back IndyCar champion before Palou's most recent triumph at Nashville Superspeedway. Franchitti won three titles in a row behind the wheel of Ganassi's No. 10 Honda from 2009 to 2011.

“Yeah, he as well is a big part of our success in the team," Palou said. "Obviously he's won many races in IndyCar, and championships, but as well, he's able to see or maybe be between the engineering group and the driver group.

"So he's maybe sometimes able to translate what the drivers want and what the engineers need to listen to. So he's very good at doing that. He's very good at comparing different drivers’ styles or different stuff that he can see off track. He's huge.”

From 2007 to 2024, 12 of 18 IndyCar championships have been won by Palou, Dixon, or Franchitti. Though it may be too early to call Palou the GOAT with 11 wins in four seasons, his most recent title certainly makes that discussion a lot more interesting. Only five drivers have won more titles than he has, and two of them he has in his corner.

An Indy 500 win would certainly help his case, though even after coming close in each of the last four years, he would not trade an IndyCar title for one at this point in his career.

“No – no," Palou said. "I want an Indy 500 so badly, but it will come someday, so I don't want to change it. I would not exchange one championship for an Indy 500. The Indy 500 is our biggest event; it's amazing. It’s so hard to win. But it's only one week, it's only one day, it's only 200 laps.

"To win a championship, it takes 17 races, with the 500 included, so yeah, I wouldn't exchange one for the other.”