Alex Palou has done it again. The Spanish driver of the Ganassi team has been crowned IndyCar champion for the fourth time in Portland, stringing together three consecutive titles (2023, 2024 and 2025) to add to the first, achieved in 2021
However, this time the coronation did not come, as Palou himself wanted, accompanied by a victory. But it was not for lack of trying, with the pride of a cannibal champion who this year wants everything… because everything is going his way. And he was not even put off by the fact that, long before expected, the championship was already decided… in a way that no one expected.
Hamilton and Leclerc battle it out in Mario Kart F1 style
O’Ward condemned
The first step toward the title – and perhaps the most difficult because it depended solely on luck – was to survive the first corner, which in previous seasons was a real trap (even Palou suffered it in the past). However, this time it was a very clean start… and favorable for the Spaniard, who gained a position to move up to fourth (and first among the drivers who started on hard tires), with O’Ward, his rival for the title, maintaining the lead.
That situation was not enough for the Spaniard to be crowned champion: Palou needed a second place if O’Ward won and a fifth to be virtual champion (i.e. simply taking the start in the next two races).
However, fate was going to play a trick on the Mexican in the cruelest possible way: in the form of an electronic failure in the gearbox of his McLaren with a Chevrolet engine. On lap 25, when he still had every chance of victory intact, his McLaren bled to death.
O’Ward pitted and the British team’s mechanics tried, at least, to get him back on track. He did so with nine laps (and the championship) lost. Because he could no longer even aspire to score enough points to take advantage of a possible (but unexpected) elimination of the Spaniard that could also come by breakdown or accident. The die was cast and the championship was coming, again, to Spain.
Champion’s pride
With the big prize in his pocket, the Spaniard tried what he had promised over and over again during the two weeks leading up to the Portland race: to win like a champion, with a victory in Oregon that would have been the third in five participations… and the ninth of a year to remember. But he had two very tough rivals in front of him, such as Will Power’s Penske, winner here last year, and the second McLaren, Christian Lundgaard’s, who had just taken pole position. In addition, both had a better pit stop strategy than Palou’s, which made the Spaniard’s task even more complicated.
So much so that the Spaniard, halfway through the race, had a deficit of more than 20 seconds. With better tyres, yes… but with a world to recover. But it was at that moment that he showed the courage and pride that has made him one of the best seasons in history. Second by second he cut the gap with pure pace until he caught up with Lundgaard with 16 laps to go.
Everything was still possible: Palou tried twice against the Dane, and in one he even ended up off the track, with a scare included. The historic Portland Grand Prix ended with the Spaniard on the podium but his dominance this year has been so enormous that even that is not enough for us.
But… Palou will be able to make amends in 15 days. Because he has another challenge: to try to equal the 10 victories of Foyt and Al Unser that are listed with the historical record of IndyCar. It will be difficult, but with the momentum of having the title in his pocket and with Palou… anything is possible.
Palou in historic IndyCar podium
With this fourth IndyCar crown, Alex Palou climbs onto the historic podium of the most important single-seater competition in the United States (which, it should be remembered, began 120 years ago, in 1905, with different names throughout its history).
Palou, at just 28 years of age, thus equals legends such as Mario Andretti, Dario Franchitti and Sebastien Bourdais, all of whom have four titles, only behind Scott Dixon (the Spaniard’s teammate at Ganassi), who has six titles, and AJ Foyt, the legend of American motorsport, with seven
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