Heading into the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season, four-time and three-time reigning series champion Alex Palou had previously competed at three of the first five tracks on the 18-race schedule, and he had won at two of them.
He won at both of those two, the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida and Barber Motorsports Park, again in 2026. Then he added a victory at the third, the streets of Long Beach, California, on Sunday afternoon.
The only current tracks that existed on the schedule at some point during Palou's career before this year where Palou has never won are Nashville Superspeedway, where he finished second in 2025, the Milwaukee Mile, where he dominated in 2025 before finishing second due to a caution for a brief sprinkle, and World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, which is probably his worst track.
Palou had never competed at Phoenix Raceway before this year, and he was knocked out in an early wreck after driving from 10th to fourth in the opening laps.
Phoenix race winner Josef Newgarden of Team Penske took the points lead for the first time since 2022, and it marked the first time that somebody other than Palou had led the standings in 623 days, an all-time series record.
Palou then placed second behind Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood on the brand-new street track in Arlington, Texas. Kirkwood took the points lead for the first time in his career after this race, and despite Palou's Barber win, he held on to a narrow two-point advantage, thanks to the fact that he had racked up four top five finishes in four starts to start the year.
Kirkwood kept his top five streak alive in Long Beach, but at a venue where he had won two of the three most recent races, a fourth place finish was a massive disappointment.
Alex Palou retakes IndyCar championship lead
He also relinquished the points lead to Palou, and it would have been Palou on top even had the dominant No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda of Felix Rosenqvist not experienced the slightest of hiccups during the final pit stop cycle of the afternoon under caution, allowing the driver of the No. 10 Honda to take a lead he would not relinquish.
They say nobody is perfect. Yet in some cases, perfection isn't even enough to beat the reigning Indy 500 champion, who checked off the only remaining major unchecked box on his resume with his crown jewel victory in the Golden State.
Rosenqvist found it out in Long Beach. Arrow McLaren's Christian Lundgaard found it out at Barber, where a significant pit stop mishap cost him a shot at fighting for the win.
And now Kirkwood, a race winner who owns what is by far the series' best worst finish through five races (fifth), found it out as well, dropping out of the points lead despite a formidable start to the year – and falling behind a driver who even has a DNF to his name.
Palou's stint in a position other than P1 in the championship standings lasted exactly 43 days, 580 days shy of the streak during which he led from Sunday, June 23, 2024 to Saturday, March 7, 2026.
Now he's guaranteed the lead for at least another 20, with the series set to have off until the road course race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 9. It's a race he hasn't not won since 2022.
Palou was a three-time IndyCar race winner when he most recently showed up at the Indy road course in the month of May and didn't win. He's now a 22-time race winner, good for a 20th place tie on the all-time wins list.
And he might well be a 23-time race winner, had he not made the most uncharacteristic mistake of his career at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course back in July and handed the win to teammate Scott Dixon in his first race with OpenAI as his primary sponsor.
With Sunday's victory in the No. 10 OpenAI Honda, Palou has now won races with nine different primary sponsors, the other eight being Segi, NTT Data, PNC Bank, American Legion, Ridgeline Lubricants, DHL, Honda Racing Corporation, and Solo Cup.
Just three other active full-time drivers have more than nine career wins, and all of them are in their 15th full-time season or later. Palou has won 11 races in 22 starts since the 2025 season began alone.
Sure, the three races after which Palou did not lead the championship, coming off of his 28-race streak at the top, were enough to give a couple of drivers a glimmer of hope. But that glimmer was just that; a glimmer.
The gap to Kirkwood is still a modest 17 points, but the gap to Team Penske's David Malukas in third is 63, which is the same as the gap from third to 16th (Juncos Hollinger Racing's Rinus VeeKay).
It's going to take an effort of gargantuan proportions to beat Palou over a full season, and it's not exactly helping matters that other teams, and sometimes other drivers, are consistently letting him get in their heads and allowing him to capitalize on their shortcomings, no matter how small.
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