Palou vying to “make history” with Washington D.C. IndyCar win

Credit: James Black

After winning the pole for the Freedom 250 on Saturday, Álex Palou’s primary focus is on etching his name into the history books by winning on the streets of Washington D.C.

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver will clinch his fifth IndyCar championship this weekend if he leads by 162 points exiting the United States’ capital. In his quest to become only the second driver to win four successive titles, the 29-year-old currently holds a 133-point lead atop the standings - over Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood - with four races remaining.

But even though he could wrap up the championship with three races to spare, the current buffer means Palou can place his attention firmly on going all-out in his bid to win one of the more unique races in IndyCar’s history. That may solve the title picture anyway.

“The best thing is that we have this huge opportunity with the status of the championship to just focus on the race and try and make history,” Palou said. “It’s going to be the first-ever, last-ever Freedom 250. It’s going to be awesome. 

“The trophy looks incredible - we want to win that. I feel like if we can do one, probably it’s going to maybe take care of the other one. But I’m really thinking about the race more than the championship. Obviously getting both at the same time would be incredible.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

As he lines up alongside Kirkwood on the front row having ousted the Floridian by 0.5668s in the Fast Six, Sunday’s race will mark the seventh time Palou has started from pole across 15 races this season. With this, he has surpassed his personal-best single-season total of P1 Awards from last year.

This has raised the Spaniard’s career tally to 19 poles, having started the 2025 season with only six to his name from his first five years in IndyCar. His 13 P1 Awards in the last 32 races equate to a 40.6% success rate, starkly contrasting a 7.4% hit-rate from his first 81 races.

It is Palou’s first pole in five rounds since Road America in June, which concluded a run of five successive races leading the field to green. It follows Detroit as the second time he has reigned in IndyCar’s revamped single-car Fast Six format in select street-course rounds.

“It’s awesome, super fun. I love these Fast Six [with] one lap,” Palou said of the one-and-done format. “Didn’t really work for us in Arlington [qualifying second]. Long Beach, we were close but we got third. Detroit, we got it with the same format. Really liked it. It was incredible. 

“It’s the best thing and the worst thing at the same time. There’s a side of me that loves it. When I’m heading into the corner without knowing if there’s going to be enough grip or not, it’s like: ‘Yeah.’ The other side of me is: ‘This is not good. We should not be braking there.’ It’s fun when it works out.”

Credit: Bella Rosen

Plenty of unknowns now await across a physical 147 laps of racing on Sunday, marking the second-longest temporary-circuit race in IndyCar’s history at 250 miles. At that distance, it is expected it will become a four-stop race, which adds a significant strategic element across what could easily become an attritional affair of survival.

At only seven turns, it is a short track, too, which means backmarker traffic will, in Palou’s eyes, “for sure” become a factor in extended green-flag runs. That said, multiple long straights mean there should be multiple reasonable overtaking opportunities.

“It’s going to be chaotic,” Palou said. “It’s a street course. It’s new. It’s 250 miles. There’s huge bumps. Huge, huge. It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be chaos. People seem to love it. It seems like the more chaos we have, people just love it, as last weekend [in Markham]. 

“We’re going to bring some more chaos. Hopefully I’m not involved. Hopefully I can make it a bit boring. [But] I honestly love it. How the corners are shaped, it allows you to attack a lot. It has a lot of grip. I didn’t expect this tarmac to have so much grip; that’s why it’s so physical for us. The big bumps, just how grippy it is, I really like this place a bit more than Detroit. 

“[For overtaking] there’s Turn 2, Turn 5. It’s so wide… if you attack someone, they want to defend, you have the exit of Turn 5 that you’re going to be able to make it. Turn 6 is impossible. There’s two-to-three passing opportunities so it will be fun.”