Why Barber was Palou’s “best weekend in IndyCar”

Written by Archie O’Reilly

Credit: Joe Skibinski

With 14 IndyCar victories now to his name, Álex Palou has a plethora of standout drives to choose from. But the three-time series champion believes the 14th and latest may well be his best yet.

It was at Barber Motorsports Park that Palou won his first IndyCar race on debut for Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) as a sophomore in 2021. And the Grand Prix of Alabama has once again welcomed the Spaniard to Victory Lane in 2025. In some style.

Having taken his seventh career pole on Saturday, the two-time defending champion, aside from pit cycles, essentially led from start to finish. His winning margin over Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard was over 16 seconds by the fall of the chequered flag. 

“It’s probably my best race or my best weekend in IndyCar,” Palou said. “Not only in IndyCar… when I say IndyCar, it would be my career. 

“Getting the pole when it was everything so tight - getting it at the last moment. And then today the fact that we had to run used tyres that are used from qualifying, they are not in good condition. To still be able to keep a good performance, then also to do it on the [less favoured] primaries, was great. I felt it was probably one of my best races.”

Palou now leads the championship by an astonishing 60 points ahead of Lundgaard after three wins in the first four races, even with the Dane having achieved three successive podiums. He could already afford to sit out an entire race weekend and still be ahead in the standings.

He continues to bring a rare sense of inevitability to a series renowned for its unpredictability. Boring? Maybe in the eyes of some. But in any case, brilliantly boring. It is an unprecedented level of performance.

“It’s a great story if we win a lot of races,” Palou laughed. “It’s a great story. It’s not bulls**t. You guys don’t understand media. You can say: ‘Alex Palou won the third race.’ Everybody likes it.”

Credit: Chris Owens

Palou possesses an impressively meticulous approach. He does not let his focus drift too far ahead - no matter talk such as that of a possible championship ‘three-peat’ in 2025.

“I never start a season or go to a race thinking about the championship,” he detailed. “Never. My goal and what I enjoy doing is working for that race weekend. For me, the next race weekend is the most important one. That’s all I think about. 

“It’s what I enjoy. I enjoy working with the team to try to get a little bit more and to try and be a little bit better than what we were the past couple of years, try and do the best we can that day. Then we turn the page and go to the next one. 

“I never actually think about the championship. I don’t think until the last three or four races, when everything starts to be compressed and you know if you finish in the top five the next couple of races, you can win or you lose it. That’s when it gets interesting. 

“Now, I look at the standings and I’ll be happy about it. I’ll smile. But it’s not going to change my motivation.”

Barber was the perfect encapsulation of Palou’s near-bulletproof season so far. That he enters Round Five with his worst result still only second place - Lundgaard the only other driver to have even finished every race in the top 10 - is remarkable.

Sporting Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) colours for the weekend, it was a dream debut for the car affectionately coined the ‘No.10 Honda Honda’.

“It was a perfect day for me, for the Honda Honda No.10 car,” Palou said. “Everything worked really well for us since [qualifying]. Getting the pole was a huge milestone for us, to start up front, try to make profit of the good performance that we had this weekend. 

“We were a bit worried about the strategy - we’ve always seen here that it could go two-stop or three-stop, depending on yellows or tyre mileage and fuel mileage. We tried to open the gap early on. When I saw that we had a really good car balance, I was just getting happier and happier towards the end of the race.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Led by strategist Barry Wanser, the No.10 CGR team opted to start on used alternate tyres, with the softer compound the preferred rubber at Barber. 

Sharing the front row, Palou and Team Penske’ Scott McLaughlin were the only alternate starters inside the top nine. Both turned to the less-favoured primary tyres for the second stint, but while the likes of Andretti Global’s Colton Herta charged behind on the alternates, Palou maintained field-topping speed, even on the unpreferred compound.

“I saw what we did to Colton and to other drivers on [primary] tyres on the first stint so I expected to suffer a lot on the second stint,” Palou admitted. “Already on lap two [after pitting] when my tyres were into temperature, I felt like the balance was actually really good.

“I was able to keep a really consistent lap time. I was a bit surprised that it went that well on primaries.”

The absence of any cautions - for the third race in succession for the first time since 1986 - meant the strategy game was relatively straightforward. There has still only been a solitary yellow period all season, falling on the opening lap of the opening race in St. Petersburg.

The lack of a caution allowed Palou’s dominance to be shown without a stoppage to eradicate his gap to the rest of the field. But it also brings its challenges.

“We always know that Barber is probably one of the more physical places that we have,” he said. “Probably I would say it’s the toughest physically for the drivers. Especially today that we had no cautions, we had to run as fast as possible. 

“We didn’t really have huge tyre deg so you had to push. Physically it was tough. But then also concentration always it’s difficult. It’s a long race. It’s tough. You’re pushing as hard as possible but the car doesn’t like it towards the end of the tyre life.”

It was a lonely race for Palou in parts - never really challenged from behind after an initial assault from McLaughlin on the opening lap. But there is always the factor of traffic at the rear end of the lead lap to contend with.

Credit: Paul Hurley

“It’s actually fun for a driver when you can just focus on your laps, on your car,” Palou said of his enjoyment when comfortably out front, as much as he realises it can be a little tedious for viewers. “You don’t need to really worry about gaps. You can just focus and blend into one.

“You need to pass some traffic, which was actually quite easy to do today. There’s races where you just suddenly get stuck. Today I was able to drive by. It’s actually fun. You get into that zone of just getting lap times.

“You focus on the lap time, the next corner, just trying to get as much fuel mileage, but at the same time taking care of the tyres and opening the gap a little bit more. For a driver, it’s actually super fun. For me, if every race is like this, I would love it.”

By leading 81 of the 90 laps at Barber, Palou surpassed 1000 career laps led in IndyCar - only four races into his sixth season in the championship. 

It is only four years ago that Palou - still an unknown quantity in the series after his rookie year with Dale Coyne Racing - was winning for the first time in IndyCar at Barber. Now in 2025, he is transcending the sport with his success.

“I would have said you were crazy,” Palou reflected when pondering whether he expected such success so quickly. “No, absolutely not. My goal was to be an IndyCar driver, then was just to be an IndyCar race winner or a person that could fight for wins and sometimes for championships. 

“I don’t think that I’m in a normal position. I’m aware that I’m very lucky to be in the position I am today, to be surrounded by a great team, being able to fight for wins every single weekend. I don’t know how long is that going to continue but hopefully it’s going to be for a long time.”

Credit: Paul Hurley

The alarming thing for the field is that those around Palou only believe he is getting better - adding yet more raw speed to his formidable consistency. And the supreme collective effort of the No.10 only continues to grow too.

“Admittedly, he’ll say he’s learning every time he’s in the car,” Wanser shared. “So there’s a lot more to learn. He’s getting stronger. 

“You can't take away from how strong the team is performing. Engineering, the setups, the pit stops… the entire team is performing well, which obviously enables him to do what we need him to do the most - and that’s perform on track. He gives us all the options with speed, fuel saving. Whatever we need, he can do it.”

Palou knows that, with 13 races still to run and only four off-weekends until the climax of the season at the end of August, he cannot afford to be complacent as the season ramps up. But he also realises the scale of the advantage he has already forged.

“[The championship lead] means nothing and means a tonne at the same time,” he said. “Means nothing for the championship yet. For sure, I prefer to be in the position we are now than in anybody else’s position. 

“Yeah, best start of my career - like not in IndyCar, I would say everything I’ve done in my life. Never been as good as here - not even go-karts.”

With cars on track every week in May - only four off-days bow before the condensed two-day Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) road course event, leading into the two weeks of the Indianapolis 500 after only further two days off - momentum is not insignificant.

“It’s huge not only for myself personally to feel like wanting to go on track but for all the team getting a small reward before the Month of May,” Palou said. “We know it’s going to be a lot of days. We know there are going to be a lot of days that are not as good on track during the Month of May. To get this win early on in the Month of May, it’s going to push everybody.”

Credit: Paul Hurley

Wanser also credited Palou’s understanding of the hybrid system as a key part of his start to the first full hybrid-powered IndyCar season. He is not a driver to shirk a challenge.

“His patience and his ability to absorb all of the information [are big strengths],” Wanser said. “When things come along that challenge the drivers… like the use of the hybrid system, he mastered that pretty easily. 

“He adapts to the car, adapts to the needs, gets the most out of the car all the time. The track here - 2.3-mile length - it’s worth about two-tenths [of a second per] lap if you get the most out of it. He gets it every lap. 

“He makes it look easy but it’s definitely not easy.”

Palou has enjoyed the process of getting used to the hybrid, which drivers admit has changed the feel of the cars at many of the tracks.

“I love studying how to extract the max performance from the hybrid,” he said. “It’s just another tool that we have as drivers to regen in different areas or deploy in different areas or just to change the balance. 

“We started really well last year with the hybrid, getting a pole at Mid-Ohio. Actually last year we didn’t get any win with the hybrid - we struggled a little bit. Now it’s like we’re getting back to form and I’m feeling really happy with the hybrid and the overall car balance.”

Palou now heads to a track on which he has dominated in the last two years in the IMS road course. That is followed by the Indy 500, for which Palou has been on pole and finished second, and then Detroit, where he has also been victorious.

It does not get easier for the competition.

“Indy road course, we’ve been really, really strong there,” Palou conceded. “I would say it’s the toughest place because everybody has a good car there. To get to the Fast 12, you need to work so hard - the margins are almost nothing. The same to get the pole or stay up front.

“Then the 500, it’s a big one. Everybody knows I’ve never won on an oval. I plan on changing that this year so you can write a great story. 

“Man, can we go to the race track right now?”