Why Milwaukee was Palou’s best IndyCar oval weekend yet

Credit: Paul Hurley

One would assume losing out on a race win on Lap 235 of 250 - especially having led 199 laps in utterly dominant fashion - would be a cause for considerable anguish. 

But as a matter of fact, regardless of being passed by first-time winner Christian Rasmussen with only 15 laps to spare, denying hopes of going into the season finale of his legendary year with the chance to equal the single-season wins record of 10, Álex Palou was delighted.

Lots was made of the absence of an oval victory on his resume heading into the 2025 season, despite the three championships to Palou’s name inside only five years. That duck was broken in style with his legacy-defining Indianapolis 500 success in May, but a previous runner-up and pole-sitter, his calibre on superspeedways was already fairly clear.

Where things had been tougher in the infancy of Palou’s IndyCar career was the shorter variation of oval - one of the more glaring of very few weaknesses in his arsenal.

Not until 2023 did Palou notch a first top-five finish and podium on a short oval at Iowa Speedway, showing further improvement last year with a runner-up result at the same track and top fives at Gateway and the Milwaukee Mile. 

But he was never quite able to get over the line and into Victory Lane.

That breakthrough finally came last month at Iowa in the second race of the doubleheader weekend. It was the third year in a row he has finished on the podium in Race 2 of that particular weekend, going from third, to second and eventually victory in 2025. 

He took his first short oval pole that same weekend - completing the pole/win set across all track types - but something still felt incomplete to him post-Iowa. He may have secured the elusive first short oval win having led 194 laps, but Palou was twice on the right side of cautions which caught out the otherwise imperious-looking Josef Newgarden.

Credit: Joe Skibinski

“Honestly, [progress on short ovals has been] a bit slower than I wanted or that I thought, at least at the beginning, to try and have that confidence and get those qualifyings and trying to get through that traffic,” Palou admitted. “Iowa was 50 percent there.”

It was a welcome rounding out of that particular segment of Palou’s resume but he still came away from that weekend feeling he had not yet cracked the short oval craft. But if Iowa felt deficient in a way, he flipped the script for once and for all at Milwaukee last weekend.

If he had been asked in the past about his weaknesses - as recently as the start of this season - Palou would have said both short ovals and peak qualifying speed. He was consistently competitive in both departments but not the absolute complete package.

But Saturday on the famed mile-long Wisconsin-based oval saw him couple together both of those past shortcomings to emphatically outclass the competition. On a track type many have felt has been the best opportunity to expose Palou, he put 0.7 mph on the field in qualifying.

Having wrapped up his fourth championship with two races to spare in Portland, it was a dream, little-to-lose situation for Palou over the Milwaukee weekend. Quite ominously, able to take more risks given the pressure-off scenario, he found even more pace in reserve in a year where he has already eclipsed the field in almost unprecedented fashion.

As 2025 draws to a close, it can now be safely said that Palou has field-topping one-lap pace on every type of track - including a range of ovals. His six-pole tally in 81 starts has been doubled in only 16 rounds, while he has been in the front row in half of the races, in the top three 10 times and top six 14 times - a worst start of ninth - so far this year.

The marker laid down on Saturday afternoon raised genuine consideration: what actually remains as a chink in his armour now?

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Palou is hyper-critical though. That drive to always be better, no matter his success, is why he is still improving, even in the midst of one of his greatest-ever years. So immediately after qualifying, he weighed in with certainty as to another remaining flaw: traffic running on ovals.

But Sunday was brutally authoritative. And why? Palou obliterated the traffic.

Quite astoundingly, yet more elements are emerging as part of Palou’s skillset this year, even with him already performing at an all-time great, entirely untouchable level. He continues to validate his own and his bosses’ claims that he is still getting better - no time better than his clinical beatdown at Milwaukee. 

He did lose the lead to front-row starter David Malukas on an early restart, but as soon as the pair reached traffic, an unpanicked Palou seized to retake the lead on Lap 41 and did not look back. He was ruthlessly in control.

Palou’s precision has always been a major strength - a reason why he has been the overall best driver on race day since he joined Chip Ganassi Racing for the 2021. But his calculated aggression has been ramped up to another level in 2025, which coupled with his continued supreme management of races is no doubt a part of why this has been his best year yet.

It was this ability to take risks, get his elbows out but never cross the line of danger which transferred to his traffic running at Milwaukee. Such was the efficiency with which he scythed through the backmarkers, he was almost 10 seconds clear of his rivals at points in a race where the lap time tends to be in the ballpark of 25 seconds.

Palou astronomically ousted the competition at something which had been his biggest remaining weakness. The way in which he used the traffic to his advantage and so decisively cut through it was reminiscent of Josef Newgarden, who the day before Palou had earmarked as the benchmark on short ovals.

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Across the entire weekend, it was as close to perfect as you will see from Palou. 

He always stayed ahead during pit cycles and rebounded to settle back into his rhythm every time his lead was eliminated by cautions. Adversity is inevitable on short ovals but Palou’s composure allows him to thrive under that sort of jeopardy.

It was a typical story of resilience, control and faultless execution. At least for 208 laps, until a frankly freakish turn of events.

If his Iowa win was at all lucky - as Palou has insinuated - his ultimate Milwaukee misfortune has restored equilibrium. This time, he was on the wrong side of a stroke of luck - that being a bizarre sprinkle of rain from what was an almost completely clear, blue sky.

A caution for dampness meant those further back in the back had the opportunity to gamble by pitting onto fresh tyres. But the leaders - Palou and his No.10 team included - were cornered, not wanting to give up their ideal track position.

“It actually only worked for some,” Palou evaluated. “It wasn’t that black and white - it was 50/50. It’s really tough when you’re leading; suddenly you pit from first and you go to eighth. There’s no way with lap cars in between we would end up winning. 

“I would still do the same. Obviously now if you look at the result, you would say: ‘Why you didn’t pit?’ It was a tough decision. That period of the race, I was feeling really confident.”

Not everyone was able to make progress on the new rubber - including Pato O’Ward, in the argument for the best current oval driver in the series. But the ever-enthralling Rasmussen did make it work where others could not, dispatching of his fellow stoppers, the Penske pair of Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin and all of the traffic in between.

Within 20 laps to go, the Ed Carpenter Racing sophomore had engineered clear road ahead of him - populated only by the race-leading No.10 car of Palou.

Credit: Chris Owens

“Pato was the first one on that strategy. I thought: ‘If he’s not passed cars, it’s going to be okay for me,’” Palou explained. “Then I started hearing what Christian was doing. 

“They were updating me on the radio. I knew that he was fourth; next corner he was third. Then he was second; he was only a second-and- a-half [behind]. Then I started pushing 100 percent. I wanted to get at least one more second or try and extend a little bit more the laps. 

“I still had the mentality that I could win, that we could stay up front. But I was wrong.”

On Lap 235, after spending the previous lap side-by-side, Rasmussen swept around the outside in Turn 1. On his older tyres, Palou had no answer for the young Dane, who checked out and surged to a maiden IndyCar win.

“I couldn’t do much,” Palou admitted. “Tried to block the outside. He had so much grip that he could have taken the inside. I tried. I didn’t want to make it easy on him obviously. Even if he didn’t overtake me, he would pass me on another occasion.”

But the fact that Palou did not walk away with the win does not take away from what was a spectacular weekend. And in his still-brief but already-legendary career, it was something of a landmark two days.

This was the event after which it really feels as though he has figured out the art of short ovals - a scarce item which did not come naturally to him after his move to IndyCar in 2020. Palou himself cannot think of an oval weekend in his career that comes close.

“I thought it was a really good race but you never know until you cross that finish line,” Palou said. “But it was an amazing day for us. Didn’t lead the lap that really counted… anyway, I thought it was my best race on an oval, even though we didn’t win. 

Credit: Chris Owens

“I think we’ve got some help before. Iowa, without that yellow I would not have won. The 500, it was just different how everything played out. But [Milwaukee] was amazing, a bunch of fun. 

“I’m feeling more confident. I don’t know if I’m feeling more confident everywhere or just here in Milwaukee. I’m excited for Nashville so we can see if we can do better. For sure I’m feeling much better - that’s the most important thing.”

Failing to win has eliminated Palou’s shot at becoming the third driver to hit the record of 10 wins in a single campaign. But should he win at Nashville, he can still become only the fourth driver to win nine races in a single season - the first since Mario Andretti in 1970. 

Still coming home second at Milwaukee, it was his 12th podium of this spellbinding year, making him only the fifth individual driver to achieve that feat in a single season.

Ultimately, the manner in which Palou lost the race showed the extent of relative obscenity it actually takes to beat him in 2025. And yet he continues to find things to refine his craft even further - such a marker of why he has edged himself into such rarified air in record time.

But it gets harder and harder to pick out any remaining weaknesses. The term ‘generational’ hardly does this justice; this is not just the best driver of his era but an individual in the conversation for the most complete driver seen across any era

This is a legend of the sport building an all-time great career in real time. But every weekend, he still continues to find ways to impress in new ways. That is something very special.