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Heading into the third race of the 2022 IndyCar season, it was hard to think that reigning champion Alex Palou’s year was barely being talked about.
Then he fought Josef Newgarden for the win at Long Beach and took his second podium in three races – his 10th in 19 starts for Chip Ganassi Racing incredibly – and suddenly it feels everyone has been reminded of why this ‘out of nowhere’ talent is here to stay.
Palou is very Scott Dixon-like in that he takes the best result available, his worst weekends are top 10s not top 20s, and he’s just always a factor no matter how far off he is in any practice or what happened at that track the year before.
After Long Beach, he trails championship leader Newgarden by 16 points. However, he has more points after three races than he did last year – despite winning at Barber to start the 2021 season – and the three races so far this year included two tracks at which Palou struggled in 2021.
He felt Texas Motor Speedway didn’t come to him as naturally as Indianapolis – where he was second in the 500 in 2021 – and there’s a case to be made for the #10 car’s worst race being St Petersburg last year, as Palou retired from the fringes of the top 10. This year, he fought tooth and nail for the win against Scott McLaughlin.
Even Texas this year was a tough weekend, but he turned that into seventh.
You’d be right to classify 2022 as an even better start than last year for what it represents.
“I think personally, the #10 car has started really good,” Palou told the latest episode of The Race IndyCar Podcast.
“We got two podiums in three races, three top 10s. It’s always good in IndyCar to score those good points.
“And if you have a really bad weekend and you finish seventh, like we did at Texas, that means you’re having a good start of the season!
“But the thing is that there’s been some other drivers that had a better start than us. Like Josef won two races, Scott [McLaughlin] won one and scored a second place at Texas.
“So they did really well. And they are really strong this year. I think all the Penske group is super, super strong.
“But I think there’s some races that are coming now like Barber that we did really good last year and hopefully we can get our head up there and try and win it, which we were really close [to doing] at Long Beach.
“We didn’t really have everything put together and Josef was just perfect that day.”
It’s easy to see why Palou has started so well if you understand his nature, his approach and probably most of all his humility. The Palou who contested his first IndyCar race as a relative unknown for Dale Coyne at Texas in 2020 is exactly the same as the title-winning supremo who greets us now. There’s not a shred of arrogance or entitlement.
Asked how the championship has changed his approach to the season mentally, he said: “This year, I think I’m still the same as last year!
“We won the championship last year, but we still want to do a bit more, a bit better.
“We know that competition is super high. I have more points than last year but we’re third in the championship so it’s always super-tough in IndyCar.
“But yeah, I feel I’m more comfortable obviously just because of the experience, not because of the fact that we won last year, and maybe I have some more confidence in some places that we did good last year.
“Just because I know I can push a lot there, that I feel good with the car and that obviously not having to win [the title] because we did it already last year, that takes a bit of pressure off.”
Ganassi was the team to beat in 2021, especially in the second half of the season when Marcus Ericsson was the form-man and the team’s leading three entries all regularly slotted into the top six.
However, Andretti and Penske especially have come out swinging to start 2022 and that’s put the reigning champion team somewhat on the ropes, even if it’s not down to doing anything especially bad.
Palou worked harder than ever this off-season – once he’d got married and had all of the championship media commitments out of the way, including driving a chicken-themed Limousine around Indianapolis Motor Speedway – to be ready to fight this year.
It’s not just his humble nature powering this, but Palou’s also acutely aware of the sheer number of drivers capable of becoming title contenders within a handful of races due to the strength of the field. If you think about it, he was one of those drivers coming out of nowhere with the right opportunity in 2021.
“We were really good last year but there were some places that we were really bad as well,” Palou admitted, when asked to provide detail of his off-season work.
“One of the things we focused on as a team was qualifying. We still haven’t achieved what we wanted, we were in the fast six in qualifying at Long Beach which was a good improvement, but we still don’t have that one-lap pace as some other teams [do]. So we’re moving better.
“And on the #10 car, but specifically me, I wanted to focus on ovals. I did really good last year at Indy and I felt really comfortable, but it’s different to other races because you have so much running, you have testing, you can get comfortable with the car and you can get comfortable with following cars, passing and stuff.
“But other races like Texas I struggled a bit there, it was not the best of my weekends. I’m looking forward to the next oval races like Iowa, I think it’s going to be super cool. Gateway as well.
“Personally, I focused a bit on ovals which hopefully will come soon.”
For Palou and his championship defence, the Indianapolis 500 is still the big one though because it provides double points. All five of Ganassi’s drivers – with Jimmie Johnson and Tony Kanaan in the mix there too – reported they were happy with where the team was at following last week’s open test at the Brickyard.
That’s all to come, but in evaluating what we’ve seen so far, Palou has been at his brilliantly consistent best. When he’s performing like this, and you sprinkle in the almost inevitable couple of wins he’ll score later on, he’s just as likely to win the championship this year as last.
More likely, you might argue, as 2021 was his first year with a big team and the first elite championship title under his belt.
You don’t need to worry about the success going to Palou’s head, though. There’s not an arrogant bone in his body and come the end of the 2022 season, it’s very likely we’ll be looking at an Alex Palou in contention for another title.
Maybe that win – the only thing missing so far in 2022 – will come this weekend at Barber, where his victory last year kick-started his Ganassi and IndyCar fairytale.
