Alex Palou is hot property, but has McLaren row ruined his F1 hopes?

Palou only finished seventh in the IndyCar round on Saturday, after triggering the opening lap pile-up at Turn 7 by tapping Ganassi team-mate Marcus Armstrong into a spin. Later on he also clashed with the impressive Devlin DeFrancesco – who pulled off a fantastic pass for the lead on Graham Rahal on the outside of Turn 1 having started from the inside of the third row, to head the early stages. Palou recovered from his moment with Andretti Autosport’s rising star and brought his Dallara home safely to bank decent points, on a day his main rival Josef Newgarden ran out of luck. The Indianapolis 500 winner was caught in that opening lap pile-up, riding up and getting stuck on Armstrong’s car. After a change of nose cone, the Penske ace could only finish 25th, two laps down.

The result leaves Palou with an advantage of 101 points with three rounds to go. So his second IndyCar crown in three years is more or less guaranteed, in a season during which he has re-established himself as the most complete driver on the grid. Although given the mess he’s made of his future career prospects, the same cannot be said of his status off the track.

In our recent interview with Palou, printed in the September issue of the magazine, we described the 26-year-old Spaniard as ‘In the eye of the storm’. That was prescient. Over the weekend, Palou’s exasperated Monaco-based management company declared it had split with the driver, as McLaren’s Zak Brown released a curt statement. “I’m extremely disappointed that Alex Palou does not intend to honour his contractual obligations to race with us in IndyCar in 2024 and beyond,” it read. “That’s all I have to say on the topic for the time being.”

The whiff of burnt bridges? Palou has tested for McLaren’s Formula 1 team and has been open about his ambitions in grand prix racing, without being specific about how, with whom and when, as seen in our interview. You could say it looks pretty unlikely a chance will come via McLaren now… although that’s not to say he won’t end up in a (renamed) AlphaTauri, Williams or something else in the future. He’s hot property and deservedly so after his stunning form this season.

But as it stands, it would seem his most likely option for 2024 will be to remain right where he is, in one of IndyCar’s prime seats. Especially now Chip Ganassi has laid down his marker publicly on the disruption to what he claims is Palou’s contractual status.

Ganassi’s ire at Indy was directed not at Palou but straight at Brown, expressed in a damning statement. “I grew up respecting the McLaren team and their success,” it read. “The new management does not get my same respect. Alex Palou has been a part of our team and under contract since the 2021 season. It is the interference of that contract from McLaren that began this process and ironically, they are now playing the victim. Simply stated, the position of McLaren IndyCar regarding our driver is inaccurate and wrong; he remains under contract with CGR.”

The end of the matter? Not by a long chalk. The saddest part is that however this one is resolved, Palou won’t come out of it looking too good. All who know him and deal with him, including our own Rob Widdows who spoke to him for the Motor Sport interview, report what a decent chap he is: engaging, thoughtful, pleasant. But he has to take responsibility for finding himself at the centre of this storm. It’s all self-induced, driven by ambition presumably. And while there’s nothing wrong with that per se, how one handles such matters can leave a telling mark on reputations. Let’s hope Palou can move on from it quickly so we can concentrate fully on what matters most: his phenomenal performances in the cockpit. Whichever one he ends up sitting in.

The other big talking point at Indy again surrounded a Ganassi ace, but this time there was nothing but big smiles and admiring shakes of the head. Scott Dixon, the 43-year-old six-time champ, hasn’t often found the spotlight this year, but on Saturday he and his beloved team pulled a blinder of a ‘spin and win’ for his 54th victory, just 13 shy of AJ Foyt’s record of 67, to stretch his remarkable run of success over consecutive seasons to 19. What a driver.

The Kiwi only started 15th, then was in the wrong place when Palou tapped Armstrong at Turn 7 on that opening lap. Dixon nudged into Palou and behind him Romain Grosjean was caught out, spinning the orange and blue Ganassi car around. Dixon quickly recovered, discovered there was little damage, but pitted under yellows for a brim-full of fuel and a set of the alternate red-walled tyres – which on this day were just the thing to have.

It took until lap eight for the field to be released for racing, then crucially they ran all the way under green from there to the lap 85 finish. For years a master of saving fuel, Dixon stopped only twice more while the front-runners required three pit visits. Having cycled through to the front on his offset strategy, Dixon did so again after his rivals pitted for the final time – and stayed there.

You had to feel for Graham Rahal. Bobby’s 34-year-old son was chasing what would have been his first victory in six years, and from a well-earned pole position. He and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing didn’t do too much wrong and in fact dominated – whenever Dixon hadn’t cycled through to lead. But now, after his third stop, Rahal found himself 6.9sec down the road on the Ganassi car. Dixon had taken some of the life out of his tyres, so Rahal closed in for a brilliantly tense and exciting chase to the finish. But the leader had enough push-to-pass boost left to keep his chaser at arm’s length, and Rahal came up short – by just half a second. This slow-burn race was red hot by the end.

As Dixon celebrated with his family, Chip Ganassi, Mike Hull and the rest, rising on Indy’s chequered lift platform to savour his achievement that carried obvious echoes of Danny Sullivan’s 1985 spin and win in the 500 itself, Rahal could only rue how close he’d come. “We’re going up against the best of all time, by far,” he said with obvious and genuine respect. “[Winning across] nineteen seasons? Ridiculous.”