Lessons Learned Help Push Palou To Indy Glory

INDIANAPOLIS — Already the face of IndyCar as a three-time series champion and the most dominant driver in 2025, Alex Palou will soon have his face attached to the Borg-Warner Trophy as the winner of the 109th Indianapolis 500.

He became the first driver from Spain to win the Indianapolis 500 as the Chip Ganassi Racing driver from Barcelona learned a lesson from Helio Castroneves in 2021 and put it to use in the closing laps of Sunday’s Indy 500.

The lesson that Castroneves used to defeat Palou and become the fourth four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 was using lapped cars to draft and pull the lead car forward by just enough that the second-place car could not pass.

The second-place car in 2021 was driven by Palou.

Four years later, Palou remembered that lesson and used it on 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson of Andretti Global.

“He was an amazing teacher,” Palou said of Castroneves. “It was an expensive class, honestly. Yes. I would have liked to still win 2021.

“I would say there’s part of luck, as well. Like you need to have the traffic at the right time, and yes, you need to be able to read it, but everything was falling to my way and then I had to overtake Marcus, but I don’t know if he thought he was safe or if he was not thinking that traffic was playing a big role on the race or not, but yeah, glad that the 2021 class paid off.”

Palou got his Ph.D. in the Indianapolis 500 from Professor Helio and continued his incredible streak of success in the NTT IndyCar Series by winning for the fifth time in the first six races this season.

The only race he did not win, he finished second in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in April.

Palou is considered a generational talent, but he is enjoying historic success and his greatest victory of all came in Sunday’s Indy 500.

“It’s incredible,” Palou said. “Honestly, I think I get a lot of credit because you see that I’m the only one driving the car. But there’s a huge team behind that is making me look very good on track. We have fast cars every single weekend, and that’s really tough to do here in IndyCar, especially nowadays.

“I was just taking the chances that we’ve had so far this season. Whenever we’ve had the chance to win, we’ve been able to execute. And that’s taking into account not only the setup, but the strategies, the pit stops that they did today as well.

“It’s incredible. And I know, I’ve been telling you guys that I know that this is not normal. But I’m glad that it didn’t end today and that we got the wave until the 500 at least.”

The closing laps were a head-to-head battle with Ericsson, his former teammate when both were at Chip Ganassi Racing.

The two drivers have tremendous trust that each other would have a clean battle to the finish.

“I was happy to fight against Marcus,” Palou said. “He’s very talented. He’s an amazing driver. I knew that he was going to be fair, like me. Like he’s going to go for it. He’s going to go to the limit, but he’s not going to go crazy.

“I knew it was going to be a good fight against him, and yeah, I just wanted to finish first because he already has one, so he can wait a couple of years to get another one.

“But yeah, it was cool to play against Marcus.”

Palou also returned decorum and dignity to victory lane at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway by not dumping milk on himself. That was a tradition that Castroneves began in 2001.

“There’s been a lot of people that had told me not to do that, and then I was like, okay, maybe I get too excited, and I do it,” Palou explained. “I was close, but then I thought, ‘oh, man, I’m going to be with the milk all over me for like the next five, six hours.’

“But there’s been a lot of die-hard fans that have told me that, and I respect that. Ricky Davis, my crew chief, told me that once, and I was like, all right, I’ll try not to do it.

“I have to tell you; it was the best milk I’ve ever had. It was super sweet. I don’t know if they put anything in it. But it tastes so well, and I didn’t pour it into my head. I hope it’s OK with you, as well.”

From a season standpoint, Palou his already compared to the likes of A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Alex Zanardi and other great drivers who have had dominant seasons.

By winning the Indianapolis 500, he is now in even greater company as a winner of the biggest race in the world.

“It’s amazing to hear that stuff,” the winner said. “I never thought that I would have my name — that somebody would say my name around those names. They are not, like, legends of IndyCar, they are legends of motorsport worldwide.

“Yeah, I don’t think that we’re with them yet. They have a lot more work done than us. But it’s for sure very encouraging to hear my name around them.”