Trade IndyCar title for Indy 500 win? Alex Palou has an interesting answer

Despite having only started his IndyCar career in 2020, Alex Palou has already solidified himself among the all-time greats, winning his third championship in four years at Chip Ganassi Racing and becoming the first driver since Dario Franchitti from 2009 to 2011 to win back-to-back titles.

Among active drivers, only Scott Dixon has won more championships than Palou has, and Palou has won those three titles as Dixon's teammate. The Spaniard was the only driver separating Dixon from a record-tying seventh championship in 2023.

At 27 years old, Palou can say that there are only five drivers who have won more American open-wheel racing titles than he has.

But what he still cannot claim is that he is an Indy 500 champion.

Palou was in contention for the Indy 500 pole position in a Dale Coyne Racing w/Team Goh Honda back in 2020 but ended up crashing during the race.

He crashed during a non-risk qualifying run in 2021 after having already effectively sealed his spot in the next round. In the race itself, he led laps and battled it out with then-three-time winner Helio Castroneves in the closing laps. Castroneves ultimately prevailed, tying the record with his fourth win.

In 2022, Palou started on the front row and led much of the race's early stages. But an ill-timed caution mired him back in 30th place, and he could only rally to finish in ninth.

In 2023, he took the pole position with what was then an all-time record four-lap average pole speed of 234.217 miles per hour around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval. But after once again leading in the early stages, contact in the pits due to Rinus VeeKay's spin again mired him back in 30th. He could only rally to finish in fourth.

Most recently in 2024, Palou set a new career-high for net positions gained during the race, as he could only qualify 14th amid a significant dip in pace for the whole Chip Ganassi Racing team. He still managed to lead laps late, something he hadn't done since his 2021 runner-up finish, and finish in fifth.

He is a contender for the win every year, but he has yet to drink the milk after five attempts. Would Palou exchange one of his IndyCar championships for an Indy 500 win?

He gave a pretty clear answer to that question.

“No. No," Palou told Beyond the Flag. "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."

Even if all 11 of his career IndyCar victories were flipped to runner-up finishes and the runners-up in each had been promoted to the top step of the podium, the championship standings work out so that Palou would still be a three-time champion.

It's that consistency over a full season that Palou values more than anything else, and though he would like to win an Indy 500 someday, that consistency over the course of an entire six-month campaign isn't something he is willing to compromise.

"The Indy 500 is our biggest event; it's amazing," he continued. "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.”

The 2025 IndyCar season is scheduled to run from the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida on Sunday, March 2 through the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday, August 31. The 109th running of the Indy 500 is scheduled to take place at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 25. All 17 races are set to be shown live on Fox.