Alex Palou has further cemented himself among the all-time greats in IndyCar after the Spaniard clinched his fourth championship at Portland, but admitted one thing in particular didn’t go quite as planned.
The reigning champion started fifth on the grid and kept out of trouble in a battling drive to third place, enough to take his fourth IndyCar title.
He narrowly missed out on victory as Palou was involved in a three-way duel in the final stint. Will Power won, as Team Penske finally took victory in 2025, and Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard.
Pato O’Ward was Palou’s only challenger left heading into the weekend at the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland, but the Mexican retired with an engine issue.
Palou admitted in the post-race press conference that O’Ward’s engine issue isn’t the reason the title battle should’ve ended, but the Spaniard knew he was on the verge of the title afterwards.
He said: “I could see on one of the screens on the straight that the No. 5 was going super slow. Then Barry [Wanser] told me on the radio. That’s not what you want a championship fight to go at. At the same time I thought that our mentality already going towards the race was try and win the race.
“It’s not like my mentality went from being defensive or trying to look for any other car. I was just with my eyes on Power, that 12 car, trying to get him. Although I knew at that point probably that meant that we’re going to win the championship, I knew that we had a race to win.”
Palou can break more records this year in IndyCar
Palou has now equalled Dario Franchitti and Sebastien Bourdais with four championships, and the Chip Ganassi Racing driver won his first Indy 500 this year.
Despite this incredible success, Palou can still rewrite the record books if he wins both of the remaining races, setting a new benchmark for the most wins in a campaign.
If Palou were to take both race victories at the Milwaukee Mile and Nashville Superspeedway, the newly crowned four-time champion would have 11 wins. This would break AJ Foyt and Al Unser’s record of 10 from 1964 and 1970.
IndyCar’s new champion had a mixed record in Milwaukee and Nashville last year, which may make life slightly more difficult in his pursuit of the record.
Palou could only manage a fifth place and P19 in Milwaukee, as technical gremlins intervened. Last year’s final round in Nashville yielded an 11th-place finish for Palou as he won the title in the season’s final round.
Image credit: Penske Entertainment: James Black
