IndyCar champ Álex Palou on motivation, his keys to success and more: 12 Questions

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Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Three-time IndyCar champion Álex Palou, who is also the current points leader after winning four of the first five races this season. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver qualified sixth for Sunday’s 109th running of the Indianapolis 500. This interview has been edited and condensed, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions podcast.

1. What was one of the first autographs you got as a kid, and what do you remember about that moment?

I actually don’t remember. Probably somebody from F1 because I used to go to a track near Barcelona, but I actually don’t remember who that person was. I just wanted to see the cars and hear those cars. I always wanted to get Michael Schumacher’s autograph, and I never got one, so I remember that.

2. What is the most miserable you’ve ever been inside of a race car?

Actually last year when I did (the 24 Hours of) Le Mans with Cadillac. It was like 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. and it was raining, it was cold, and I (spent) an hour and a half or two hours behind the safety car at like 20 kph (12 mph). I was falling asleep, I was cold, and I was bored. I didn’t know what to do. So that’s the most miserable by far.

You’re not racing at that point, you’re just fighting off sleep?

So the cars are not comfortable (compared) to a road car. It was cold because you don’t have a heater. It was raining and you couldn’t really see. It was tough to be at 20 kph, and it was 2 a.m., so yeah. It was tough. That was the worst.

3. Outside of racing, what is your most recent memory of something you got way too competitive about?

Anything I do. I got into pickleball a little bit and just wanted to play with people who were a little bit worse than me so I could beat them. But probably iRacing. It’s the most serious one, where I would just spend hours and hours.

4. What do people get wrong about you?

They probably think I don’t express myself too much during the interviews or during the races. But if you talk to anybody on my team, they would say I’m not that way. I’m more outspoken than what it seems. But when I’m having interviews or just being at the track, that’s like the moment to be focused and just be ready for the track.

If you were doing an interview away from the track, do you think more people would see more of your personality?

It’d still be tough. Like, I probably don’t have the best personality for an interview. I think the language also doesn’t help (Palou is a native Spanish speaker). I know English, obviously, but it’s not the same to express myself in Spanish to English. So sometimes to say some stuff, I need to wait and find the words to say what I was trying to say.

But yes, probably being outside the track would help a little bit. It’s not the same to do an interview like 10 minutes after you’ve been at the car, and you’re only thinking about the car, and you’re gonna just answer that question like, “Blah, blah, blah.”

Álex Palou celebrates with his team after winning the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in March. Palou has won four of five races this season. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / Getty Images)

5. What kind of Uber passenger are you and how much do you care about your Uber rating?

I don’t like to talk. I just like to be silent. But I actually care quite a lot when Uber drivers … are on their phone or they pay too much attention to their phones. I hate that because I know how distracting the phone is and how just a split second can ruin your life. It gets me very nervous. So sometimes when I see them taking the phone, I start speaking so they talk to me and they look at the road instead.

6. This is a wild-card question I’m changing for each person. You’ve won three of four championships and you’ve won (four) of the first (five) races this year. How do you maintain your edge and your motivation when everything is going so well?

Because that’s not my goal. My goal is not to win one race or one championship. That’s not really what motivates me. I actually think winning one championship to two, it doesn’t really change much. Once you’re a champion, you’re a champion. Two-time champion? It doesn’t really change.

It’s more being able to win every single race and being able to win every single weekend. I remember what happened last weekend at the Indy road course (when he won again), but that’s it. It was great, we enjoyed it, but now it’s the 500. We’ll be as good as what we finish there, and then we’ll move on from that.

7. For this question, I’m going back to a previous 12 Questions interview I’ve done. In 2021, I asked you if there are any new habits you’re proud of. At the time, you said you’d been waking up at 6 a.m. every day to work out with your trainer. Do you still do that four years later, and do you have any new habits?

I still do that, but it’s 6:15 or 6:20 actually because of my daughter (Lucia, age 1). I need those 20 minutes extra just to recover a little bit. Probably my favorite habit is just being at home with my daughter and having breakfast with her. It doesn’t happen very often, but today, for example, I got a late start and I was able to be at home with her. Having any moments with her is my favorite time.

8. Other than one of your teammates, who is a driver if they won a race, you’d be one of the first people to go congratulate them in victory lane?

Everybody who does an amazing job from my point of view, I go and congratulate them. Not every single race, because otherwise you’d spend all the time congratulating people. But whenever there’s something like, “Man, that was quite impressive,” I would go and say congratulations. It can be anybody, even somebody I don’t like.

Marcus Ericsson is not a teammate anymore, but if he wins, I’m happy and I would go for sure. Colton (Herta), I would be happy as well. So there’s a couple of drivers out there I would always be happy to see, unless they win too much. And then I would stop being happy.

9. How much do you use AI technology, whether for your job or your daily life? Do you ever use ChatGPT?

I do a lot. I started probably two years ago, and I’ve used it a lot for my racing team in Spain with my dad. It’s a team where we don’t have many resources, and we were developing tools for the team. I knew what we needed because obviously I see what we use at CGR or other big teams I’ve been part of, but I knew that we needed a lot of money to make (those tools) happen. But with AI, with ChatGPT, we were able to make it — not the same, obviously, but something that was close.

Now (OpenAI) is a partner of our team, so we have them with us. But what they bring is like maybe 100 times better than what I was able to do with AI. It’s awesome.

10. What is a time in your life you felt was really challenging, but you are proud of the way you responded to it?

I would say 2022 with my contract stuff (when he signed with McLaren but put himself in breach of contract with Ganassi). Proud of how I responded? I don’t know, but I did the best I could with what I knew at that time, with how I acted. It’s too easy whenever you see everything that happened to go back and say, “I could have done that different.” So I don’t look at it that way, but that was the most stressful moment of my life, and I think I responded OK.

11. What needs to happen in IndyCar to take the sport to the next level of popularity?

It’s tough. I don’t think it’s just like one or two qualifying (sessions), and suddenly the sport will be popular. I don’t think it’s that easy. You need a little bit of everything. You need a partner in TV that supports you and puts money and energy into it, which now we have with Fox. You need some drivers who are popular and like and enjoy being the face of the championship, which now we have that as well. And then you just need perfect timing with everything, you need people to come to races and get engaged when they’re at home. You need a good product, which I think we have.

So it’s going to take time, but honestly, I’ve seen how it’s been growing since I’ve been in IndyCar. It’s been crazy the amount of people we’ve been having at the track, and it’s getting better and better every track we go — even at Barber (Motorsports Park, in Birmingham, Ala.), which normally we don’t tend to have that many people, and it was packed. We’re getting there, but it’s just gonna take probably five or six years.

12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next interview. The last one was Kyle Larson and he says: “At this point in your career, what do you believe you understand about the craft of racing that most of your competitors still haven’t figured out?”

(Takes a long breath.) I don’t know if I can say it here. Probably not, because they’re going to listen. But maybe patience. There’s some people who don’t see or don’t read the race early on. They probably look only at the first stint of the race and they don’t look that it’s a three-stop race. You need to get first at the end, not at the beginning. That’s been something that has been working for me, but it’s not that I invented it or suddenly I’m more intelligent than everybody else. I’m able to do that because I have a good car and a good team around me that makes me see that.

But yeah, there’s some stuff I think that works for me that I’m not gonna say, and I’m sure Kyle wouldn’t share it either. What was the question he got, do you remember?

It was from Ross Chastain to Kyle and the question was “What is your best Chip Ganassi story?” And Kyle said Chip would sometimes take food off of his plate when he was eating, like maybe a piece of steak where Chip would reach over and eat it. And then I told Ross what Kyle said, and Ross said Chip has taken French fries off his plate in the past, too. Has that happened to you as well, perhaps?

Maybe. Maybe. (Smiles.)

The next interview I’m doing is with Justin Allgaier, who is leading the points in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Do you have a question I can ask him?

I would like to know a little bit about oval racing. I’ve never driven in NASCAR, an Xfinity or a Cup car, so for me going from an IndyCar to there, I can only imagine what it feels like. How does he feel the tires on an oval compare to a road course or a street course? Normally, when we go over the (limit of the) tires on a road course or street course, you have either a little bit of understeer — some push and it starts to chatter a little bit — or you have oversteer, especially when you go on power and you’re overheating those tires. So I would like to know on ovals, how do you feel (the sensation) you’re going over the slip angle and the stress of the tire? That’s something I’m still trying to figure out.

(Top photo of Álex Palou celebrating his win earlier this month in the Sonsio Grand Prix in Indianapolis: Brian Spurlock / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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