PORTLAND, Ore. — Alex Palou is a two-time IndyCar champion with Chip Ganassi Racing following a dominant run Sunday at Portland World Raceway.
Palou earned his 5th win of the season to fasten up the name with one weekend residue within the 17-race agenda. It’s the first while in IndyCar the championship has been settled sooner than the finale for the reason that past due Dan Wheldon gained in 2005.
“I never thought I’d be an IndyCar champion and to be a two-time IndyCar champion just feels amazing, like a dream,” Palou mentioned. “It was an amazing weekend. We just raced how we’ve been doing all season.”
Palou this era led IndyCar in just about each and every measurable statistic: wins, poles, podiums, top-five finishes, top-10 finishes, races led and laps finished. In reality, Palou completed all however two laps all season and may have had a 6th victory however was once spun on pit street right through the Indianapolis 500 and needed to force his as far back as a fourth-place end in a race he appeared eager to win.
Palou began the race with a comfy issues govern over Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon, the one driving force mathematically eligible to problem the Spaniard for the name. But it surely didn’t topic what Dixon did within the race as a result of if Palou podiumed, the championship can be over.
He did way over podium at Portland.
Palou led 69 of the 110 laps to attain a decisive victory over runner-up Felix Rosenqvist, who completed 5.4353 seconds again. Dixon, the six-time IndyCar champion, completed 3rd for the 3rd consecutive while at Portland.
“I don’t know if we had enough speed for Alex, he was definitely fast,” Dixon mentioned in lauding his teammate. “He kind of does everything right. He’s a hell of a competitor, a huge talent.”
It’s the second one name in 3 seasons for Palou, who gained each titles riding for Ganassi, and the fifteenth IndyCar name for the crew proprietor. Of Ganassi’s many name winners, Palou joins Dixon (six), Dario Franchitti (two) and Alex Zanardi (two) as drivers with more than one championships.
“He’s certainly special,” Ganassi mentioned. “He’s part of our team and we couldn’t be more happy about that. He likes to win, he told me that. He told me before the race, I said ‘Let’s go wrap this up today,’ he looked at me and said ‘I’m going to wrap it up with a win.’ I said ‘OK, great.’ He called his shot today.”
Ganassi next confident that “Alex Palou is going to be in our car, I can tell you that, for sure.”
Palou was once intended to reduce Ganassi on the finish of the season for a walk to Arrow McLaren Racing, the place he was once additionally McLaren’s check and keep System One driving force.
However Palou knowledgeable McLaren terminating past he’s no longer shifting to the crew, and McLaren has filed swimsuit in the UK looking for a minimum of $20 million in damages and to recoup cash already complicated to Palou.
