Álex Palou, IndyCar’s new qualifying marvel: “That one guy all the time”

Credit: Paul Hurley

“Damn,” Will Power uttered. “Just that one guy all the time.”

IndyCar’s all-time record holder for most pole positions was exasperated. And isn’t the whole field? Because yet again, for Sunday’s Detroit Grand Prix, Álex Palou is on pole position.

Even up until being crowned a three-time series champion at the end of 2024, it was not always this way for the Chip Ganassi Racing driver. Heading into last season, while having been a consistently strong qualifier, he had only six poles to his name from five campaigns.

Yet now, with Detroit marking his third successive pole on a third different type of track - after claiming the P1 Award for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis 500 - his career tally stands 10 higher than it was only a season-and-a-half ago.

“The speed from the cars [has been fast] the last years especially,” Palou admitted. “I thought last year was tough to top off in terms of speed, but this year everybody at CGR went one more step - everybody at Honda as well - to have even more speed.”

His pole total was doubled last year alone, ending his fourth championship-winning season with 12 all-time. Now inside only eight rounds in 2026, attempting to become only the second driver to ever achieve a championship four-peat - and currently atop the standings in that bid - he has won half of the poles, owing to a further pole at Barber Motorsports Park.

With Palou still only 29 years old, Power - now 45 years old himself - is even starting to think of any jeopardy to his own unmatched tally of 71 pole positions.

Credit: Joe Skibinski

“It’s not impossible because that’s where I started, where he was. Depends how long he goes,” Power said, a quip pending. “Might convince Dan [Towriss, TWG Motorsports and Cadillac Formula One CEO] to put him in F1 if he gets close.

“In that sort of 2010/11/12 time was a lot of poles. It ebbed and flowed at times. I had five or so poles in a year; I went in and out depending on the car configuration and so on. Álex is certainly pumping them out. It’s good stuff. I wish I could convince Dan to put you in F1.”

Having arrived midway through Power’s ramblings, to the Andretti Global man’s amusement, Palou chimed in: “I’m good here. They can take Colton [Herta] and Kyle [Kirkwood].”

Only a day prior, referring to his own rough start to the season, which has left him 17th in the standings after seven races, Power had gone out of his way to earmark how well the three-time defending champion and his No.10 team execute error-free weekends.

“I do think about Palou at these times and think about how often he puts it together. But his time will come,” Power chuckled post-Friday practice. “That was an evil laugh.”

The idea of an errant run being inevitable is not something Palou shies away from. But it has become distinctly unfamiliar to him, having not started outside the top 10 since the final race of 2024 and having only recorded three race results outside the top 10 - and only two more outside the top five, including seventh in the recent Indy 500 - since the start of 2025.

Even having failed to finish at Phoenix Raceway following a collision with Dale Coyne Racing’s Rinus VeeKay, he still stands 37 points clear at the head of the championship.

Credit: Joe Skibinski

“We have the processes but you know the time will come. I agree with [Power],” Palou reacted. “I hope he’s wrong and I hope I’m wrong. That’s life. You go through a good stretch. I’ve been saying it the last two years; hopefully it goes another four or five the same way. 

“I’m just in a moment where I feel super confident with myself, the team is giving me the fastest cars - and I feel very confident with the car, the team, with everything. I’m on that sweet spot. Hopefully it’s long and it’s tall. [But] it could just go wrong tomorrow.”

Palou toiled ever so slightly en-route to his latest pole, beaten by Kirkwood in the opening round and placing only fourth in the Fast 12 segment. But despite running fourth in the one-shot Fast Six segment, he was still able to deliver a 16th career pole lap by over two-tenths of a second ahead of Power on that sole, high-stakes attempt.

“You just want to go for it,” he said, having bemoaned a little that the Detroit circuit is the least grippy on the IndyCar schedule. “It was very close but I was comfortable with what I had. I had a lot of confidence with the car so I could get those limits and brush the wall. 

“It’s tough now with this Fast Six style to know what you’re going to get. I thought we had a great car but maybe not [Power’s] speed or Scott [McLaughlin]’s or Kyle’s. Very happy with my lap; there was a lot more grip than I thought on Fast Six.”

The anticipation is that, given the rule mandating that drivers must use two sets of the softer, red-sidewalled alternate tyres, Sunday’s race will naturally be a soft-tyre affair. Otherwise, Palou believes the alternate and harder primary compounds - the latter on which he has proven the best in the field by some margin - are “quite close” in terms of performance.

Credit: Paul Hurley

Also on a strategy front, jeopardy is added by the fact IndyCar will no longer wait to deploy a caution for an incident to allow drivers to pit. This comes in the aftermath of Alexander Rossi’s Ed Carpenter Racing machine being left stranded on the frontstretch without a full-course yellow on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course earlier this month.

That opens up the threat of the danger zone should drivers opt to stay out longer. Often keen to extend stints, this already led to Palou cycling from the lead to the rear amid confusion about whether the pits were indeed open during the Rossi debacle. 

Could this be one risk factor to halt his charge, as Power and the rest of the field so hope?

“Even until now, we didn’t know if it was going to be a yellow or if they were going to wait. It was like trying to anticipate what somebody else was going to think,” Palou assessed. “Now, at least it’s clear. In the long-term, I think it’s going to be a benefit for everybody. 

“[It is] going to be better so we don’t have to be guessing. It’s better to avoid confusion. It’s going to be literally worse for the people that are leading. Now, it’s going to be beneficial to go crazy, pit early and hope for a yellow. At least it’s going to be the same for everyone.”

This may well prove pertinent on the tight Detroit streets, where cautions are often rife. And at the drop of the green flag on Sunday, Palou is vying to end a two-race run of finishing only fifth and seventh from his most recent two pole positions.

“I have to say, poles are cool [but] it doesn’t pay as much as [the race],” he insisted, as he searches for his fourth win of the year. “It’s super satisfying for today, but as we’ve seen the past two races, it doesn’t really mean we’re going to have more chances to win or anything.”