On the brink: How Palou elevated his historic season at Laguna
- Archie O’Reilly
- Jul 28
- 10 min read
Álex Palou’s previous most dominant IndyCar season saw him finish the year on 656 points. Back in 2023, in what was one of the all-time great IndyCar campaigns, that made him the first driver to seal the championship before the final race in over a decade-and-a-half.
But with three races still remaining in 2025 after taking an eighth victory of the season at Laguna Seca, Palou is only 66 points - equivalent to three ninth-place finishes - shy of surpassing that 2023 tally as he continues to take a historical season from strength to strength.
Not in over half-a-century have we witnessed a year quite like this.
Such has been his unprecedented level of dominance in 2025, after 14 rounds of the 17-race season, now only Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward also remains in mathematical title contention. All other 25 full-time drivers have been eliminated with three races to spare, with Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) teammate Scott Dixon 198 points back in third.
At 121 points ahead of O’Ward, Palou only needs a total of 42 points - which can be achieved by three 16th-place finishes - to seal the title. If he leaves Portland, where he sealed the championship with a win two years ago, with a 108-point lead over O’Ward, he will go one better than 2023 and clinch with two races to spare.
To keep the ‘fight’ alive, O’Ward needs to out-score Palou by 14 points in a fortnight’s time. Should Palou finish above O’Ward, the deal will be sealed.
But while it may seem a formality and Palou knows he is close, he is never a driver to allow complacency to creep in.
“It’s never over until it’s over,” Palou conceded with his typical humility. “I proved that [by losing the lead] at Mid-Ohio - and we’ve seen that in the past as well. I would not trade our points for anybody. I would not trade our position and I would not ask for anything more or anything less.
“But it’s not done until it’s done. We still need to win it. We still need to keep our heads down and try and win more races.”
But Palou is on the brink. It is now at a stage that even the most catastrophic of collapses probably will not deny his third successive title.
In many ways, it would be sweet to secure the title in the Pacific Northwest again for Palou. Back in 2023, his beloved strategist Barry Wanser was sadly not in attendance for the party as he recovered from surgery having been diagnosed with skin cancer, from which he made a full recovery.
He was carried in spirit that weekend in the form of a giant cardboard head. But it would be special if Wanser - the bedrock of the No.10 team - could be present for more Portland celebrations in two weeks’ time.
“I love to enjoy it with the team,” Palou said. “I like to celebrate with the team and have fun and have a great dinner. We had an awesome dinner together [in 2023] but I remember that I actually had a redeye flight back to Indy for simulator because we had another race the next weekend.
“I’m pretty sure that that would be the same case. But to get there, we need to win it first. I hope we’re in that scenario and that we need to find ways to celebrate it at Portland.”
Regardless of whether he goes on to seal the title next time out in Round 15 or beyond, it has been a memorable season for Palou and his team. And frankly, it will be a year that stands the test of time as an “I witnessed that” season for onlookers.
Palou’s third career Laguna Seca win has made him the first driver to reach eight victories in a single season since Sébastien Bourdais in 2007. He holds a 57.1 percent winning rate after 14 races, with 10 top-two finishes - in 71.4 percent of races.
“Four [wins], I would say, it’s a season that you are on fire,” Palou suggested. “Three is a good season. We won the championship last year with two wins - and another one at Thermal that was not inside the championship. I felt that last year was a really good year for us. But whenever you are able to win three races, it’s a pretty good year.”
So eight wins now for Palou… it is something abnormal in the IndyCar world.
And Palou’s performance in Sunday’s Grand Prix of Monterey elevated this stunning season into further rarified air. And in the Spaniard’s eyes, from his catalogue of now 19 wins, it may have been his best yet from across six already-illustrious years in IndyCar.
On the brink of a fourth title in five years with CGR, he truly is validating claims from team owner Chip Ganassi that he is still getting better as he continues to break new, momentous ground.
“It was another magical day for us, the No.10 car and CGR,” Palou said. “I think this was probably one of our best weekends ever.”
It was a race of control but also resilience having been pegged back several times by cautions throughout the 95 laps - ultimately leading all bar the 11 laps for which Nolan Siegel was ahead on an alternate strategy. But every time Palou had his lead extinguished, he kept on coming back and running away again.
Not only is it a third win at Laguna Seca, but he preserves his 100 percent podium record across five visits to the famed track - a technical circuit that appears to reward the smoothness and precision of his style of driving.
You could make an argument for any road course as his strongest on the calendar with Palou having won at all seven on the schedule. But regardless of the state of the track - newly repaved or weathered - Laguna Seca may just be Palou’s strongest of all.
“I don’t know [why], honestly. I have no idea,” Palou admitted. “I love it so much, every single lap. Even the in-laps, the out-laps… I love every single lap I do around here with any car. I normally tend to love other tracks that we go to but this is the most fun I have.
“There’s been different track conditions. In 2021 and ‘22, we had the old pavement, and although it was the same track, it was a completely different technique that you needed. Then with the high grip that we had after the repave was another one. Today was a different one as well - it was changing a lot.
“Probably the amount of laps I did on the simulator here when I was a kid helps. It was my favorite track when I was a kid. It’s one of the most iconic, if not the most iconic, road course that we have.”
Palou started from pole position for the fifth time this season - defending his pole as well as victory from Laguna Seca last year - as he continues to establish himself as consistently the quickest driver in single-lap pace now too.
If he was ever asked about a ‘weakness’ in the past, outright qualifying speed was likely Palou’s answer. But he has emphatically overcome any lingering - nothing more than very minor - qualifying struggles in 2025.
His pole tally has been raised from seven to 12 - his previous best single-season tally having been three last year. He has been on the front row in half of the 14 races so far this year, qualifying in the top three nine times, the top six 12 times and starting a worst of ninth all season.
“We started very good in practice but we had to make a couple big changes for qualifying,” Palou explained of his Laguna Seca weekend. “And they worked really well - got the pole. Then [in the race] we had a lot of pace. I was super comfortable with the car. Car balance was amazing.
“Strategy, pit stops [were amazing too] and we were fast on both soft or hard tyres. It was one of those days where it felt like we had a big pace advantage and I’m happy that we were able to capitalize and get that win. Could not be happier.”
Leading the field to green at Laguna Seca, Palou controlled the start. But as much as he was out front from start to finish and dominant, jeopardy kept on rearing its head.
Starting on new alternate tyres and aided a little by Andretti Global’s Colton Herta jumping ahead of O’Ward - sharing the front row with Palou - on his harder primary tyres, Palou was able to build a comfortable gap after an opening-lap caution. But on Lap 11, a further yellow period eliminated an already-commanding lead.
Palou kept on rebuilding his advantage though. And within three laps of the second restart, he was again three seconds ahead of Herta.
There was a somewhat lucky break for Palou on Lap 25, with Rinus VeeKay stranded in the gravel mid-pit cycle at Turn 3 but IndyCar leaving the track green until the leaders - Palou included - had a fair opportunity to pit. He could easily have been trapped in the ‘danger zone’ and tumbled down the order by having to pit under caution.
It would have been horrifically unlucky if Palou was scuppered by the caution given his dominance. Quite frankly though, he probably would have been quick enough to find his way back to the lead anyway.
But Palou did not have to worry about that, granted the opportunity to pit and coming out only behind Siegel on his different strategy. As a result, on Lap 37 came what was probably Palou’s most eventful on-track moment all day - given the authority with which he marshalled a total of five restarts - as he made a bold outside move on Siegel in Turn 3.
It was a showcase of Palou’s patience but ability to decisively pounce and take a calculated risk when an opportunity arises. His execution was flawless.
“That was good,” Palou said of his pass on Siegel. “I tried it [on Saturday] in the warmup; I felt that it was a good passing point. I knew that it was aggressive, especially the team [Arrow McLaren] you’re fighting with. But I thought that was my best chance to try and win the race. You don’t want to lose time behind cars that you think are slower than you.
“Ultimately he pitted that lap and I was like: ‘Really? I took that much risk and I had to prepare my pass so much and then you pitted?’ Barry told me there’s two or four laps and he was going to pit. But I was like: ‘If it’s four laps, it could be four to five seconds. And I just want to have those seconds in our pocket.’”
Palou once again dropped the hammer after that moment, surging clear of the field. By this point, he had switched to the harder, slower, less-favoured primary tyres. But as has become a theme this season, Palou mastered the black-sidewalled compound.
Herta chased in vain on the softer, theoretically quicker alternates behind but Palou was still able to maintain and extend his gap. He was in a different league.
“The biggest turning point in the race for us was the pace we had on the primary harder tyres against the cars behind us on the alternate soft tyres,” Wanser theorised. “That was really important.”
Palou ultimately turned to used alternate tyres for his final two stints, next encountering a hint of jeopardy around the final pit cycle as he found himself in the caution ‘danger zone’ with some backmarker traffic ahead.
But his healthy lead meant he could afford to stay out longer before making his final stop, all the while reducing the length of his final stint on a second set of used red-sidewalled tyres. As always, pit stops were flawless and Palou exited the pits from his final stop still with a massive buffer, plus a preferable tyre situation against Christian Lundgaard behind.
“It was tough [on used alternates],” Palou admitted. “It felt amazing for the first 10 laps. It was allowing the driver to push a lot and to feel like you had superpowers for 10 laps. But then suddenly the rears or the fronts, they would start giving up.”
But it was again a masterclass in management and execution from Palou. And for the No.10 team, it was a resounding return to form after a rare strategy misstep in a caution-filled Toronto race confined Palou to a 12th-place finish.
Palou took the blame for choosing the wrong strategy for that race - one of only two primary-tyre starters in the top 14 - but the No.10 win and lose very much as one. That camaraderie is part of what has made it such a legendary combination.
“Certainly it’s a true team effort,” Wanser insisted. “Last week in Toronto, our strategy didn’t work so well but Álex wants to try to claim the responsibility. Myself and the race engineer were like: ‘No, no, you can’t claim all the responsibility for what went wrong. Part of it’s on us.’ But that’s just the type of guy he is.
“Performance today was amazing by the team, in the pits, certainly by Álex.”
Only five laps after Palou’s final stop, he lost his lead of over seven seconds again at the hands of a caution. And almost as soon as he had got the jump on Lundgaard and built a gap again, a fifth and final caution was brandished on Lap 85.
But on each of the race’s five restarts, Palou was his trademark unfazed, unflappably composed self, even in the face of jeopardy in a race he had controlled with authority.
“You’re always worried but I thought it was more in our hands of making a good restart and braking late enough but not too late in Turn 2,” Palou divulged. “That’s what you’re always looking for. I was comfortable.”
In the nine laps of green-flag running to the chequered flag, Palou once again drew out a gap of almost four seconds. And whether it was O’Ward, Herta or Lundgaard in pursuit, he was utterly untouchable from beginning to end.
And really, that has been the story of this 2025 season. It is a campaign still becoming more and more historical by the weekend - and with it increasingly indescribable.
There are few superlatives that really feel as though they do justice to what the IndyCar world is witnessing in 2025. But you really just have to let it all sink in and, with every level-up, appreciate the history unfolding in real time, before our very eyes.
With three races remaining, there is a genuine prospect of Palou at least equalling the record of 10 victories in a single season. And within an era during which IndyCar is widely regarded as being at the peak of its competitiveness.
“It seems that it’s a lot of work to make it but I don’t mind hearing that,” Palou asserted. “Whenever you hear that you are in a chance of making something that it’s so historical and so tough to do, it motivates us.”
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