How Ganassi's relentless new champion outfoxed IndyCar's best

Reporters, drivers, team owners, race engineers and fans will regularly point out that IndyCar is insanely close, that there are 20 potential winners every weekend and so on. And that’s true.

So it’s a measure of Alex Palou’s brilliance in 2021 that he made it look easy, overcame setbacks that were not of his making, and prevailed over a field of aces, including veterans and his fellow Generation Z members. It’s as if he alone was capable of not only understanding the formula for championship glory, but also faithfully following it.

Certainly, Palou carried out to the letter Chip Ganassi’s maxim of, ‘If you can’t be first, be second; if you can’t be second, be third,’ etc. Unless something out of his control put him out, you could count on the Honda-engined #10 Chip Ganassi Racing car to be in the mix for a top-five finish. The 24-year-old Spaniard was in only his second year at this level, yet already he had the consistency of an IndyCar veteran blended with the relentless enthusiasm of youth.

Perhaps primary among Palou’s skill set is exquisite judgment, his ability to resist allowing his emotions to override his assessment of what is or isn’t feasible on any given day or in any given wheel-to-wheel situation. With up to 27 other cars to overpower, be they fast rivals or drivers he wishes to lap who are desperately trying to stay on the lead lap, there are ample opportunities in IndyCar for a driver to throw their car off or compromise their own strategy by rooting the tyres or burning up too much fuel trying to make a pass.

Take Portland, the third race from the end of the season. Palou scored his first IndyCar pole, but was compromised by team-mate Scott Dixon into Turn 1 at the start, as the six-time champion was nudged from behind by Palou’s predecessor at Ganassi, Felix Rosenqvist. Dixon was forced straight on through the notorious chicane, so Palou on his outside and with nowhere to turn in had to do the same. It looked as if the pair had done the perfect job of avoiding a disastrous clash, but IndyCar Race Control ordered them back to 15th and 16th for the restart, punishment for leaving the racing surface.

There are conflicting stories regarding what happened over the radio next. Dario Franchitti, Ganassi’s driver advisor and the man who Palou most closely emulates in terms of temperament, said his charge remained calm, yet the man himself said he needed to be soothed into accepting his penalty.

Palou overcame Portland start melee to score psychologically crucial victory

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Whatever the case, Palou channelled his indignation into a beautiful drive, matched by the team’s perfect reading of the necessary strategy and his own crew’s slick pitstops, as he came through to score his third win of the year. On a day when his closest title rivals Dixon, Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward finished third, fifth and 14th respectively, it was a big points day for Palou.

But it was also important psychologically, for the previous three races had been unsatisfactory. An engine change grid penalty had left Palou with too much to do at Nashville and, although he showed that uncanny knack of avoiding trouble on a weekend when some drivers appeared to go seeking it, he could recover only to seventh. Then in the season’s second race on the Indianapolis road course, Palou was set to finish fourth when his engine let go, not only losing him points but also meaning another penalty for the next race at Gateway due to another new engine.

That sent him tumbling to near the back of the grid, and Ganassi didn’t appear to be on the pace on the 1.25-mile oval. Yet he scythed through, only for he and Dixon to be sent into the wall by an overambitious Rinus VeeKay. That pressure, added to his annoyance at the penalty in Portland, could have caused a meltdown from even the most seasoned pro, yet Palou’s final three races resulted in a first, a second and a fourth.

For the first time since 2011, Dixon was beaten over a season by a driver from the same stable, and at times he seemed nonplussed as to why

Palou wasn’t quite flawless. There was his relative anonymity in St Petersburg, just a week after his first win in the season-opener at Barber Motorsports Park. There was a crash on the first qualifying day at the Indianapolis 500, and possibly inexperience that cost him the win in a battle with IMS legend Helio Castroneves. He was outpaced by team-mate Marcus Ericsson at Mid-Ohio.

But really, that was about it. Set against these minor quibbles was a record of finishing half of the 16 races in the top three, including three wins.

Against such flawless attack and solid defence, his rivals were destined to struggle, and inevitably those most likely to suffer in direct comparison were his team-mates.

For the first time since 2011, Dixon was beaten over a season by a driver from the same stable, and at times he seemed nonplussed as to why. Part of it was qualifying, which has long been the weakest part of an otherwise supremely strong skill set. He can set brilliant sector times, but stringing them together for the ideal lap has proven troublesome.

Dixon was beaten by a team-mate for the first time since 2011 and had a few off-days

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

In the past, Dixon could shrug that off and bounce back on race day with a combination of relentless fast laps and the best pitcrew, but there were too many days this year when the usual magic never appeared. His performances at Detroit, Mid-Ohio, the Indy road course and Laguna Seca just weren’t what we’d normally see from him, and every time someone on his own team did the job better.

That said, he had his unlucky days, none more so than Memorial Day Weekend, when many were predicting he would at last nail his second 500 win. He lost it through no fault of his own: a badly timed caution period combined with a Honda that wouldn’t restart. A strategy dilemma in race two at Texas Motor Speedway killed his hopes of a double there, having dominated race one. But it’s hard to recall any other days where you’d say he missed out on victory. He just wasn’t in the top three as much as we’ve come to expect.

Consequently, for much of the season, O’Ward was Palou’s main rival, as Arrow McLaren SP turned IndyCar’s Big Three teams into a Big Four. Both of O’Ward’s first two wins – at Texas and in the second Detroit race – were delivered in swashbuckling style, and he is a joy to watch on these occasions, making incisive passes, racing very hard but fair. His on-track ethics made his exit from the season finale at Long Beach particularly hard to watch, even though he and we all knew that by then the title was a hellishly long shot.

But there were times when the team’s F1-influenced set-ups, which turn on the car’s tyres quicker than at any other team – and/or his response to such set-ups – cost him dearly. He couldn’t keep the rubber under him at Barber Motorsports Park after scoring pole, he looked like tethered prey when pursued by Will Power in the second Indy road course race, and there were several races where his presence would have gone almost unnoticed, had he not been a title contender.

However, if AMSP makes the same progress in the off-season that it made in 2021, he could be championship favourite for 2022: he’s extremely fast and still makes very few major errors.

One of the talking points of the first two thirds of the season was the absence of wins for Penske, and while that mini-drought should have been ended by Power in Detroit race one (his engine failed to restart after a red flag while he’d been leading), or Newgarden at Road America (his transmission crapped out on the penultimate lap following a restart), the team wasn’t firing on all cylinders most of the time. Power was beaten by Palou at Barber, Newgarden by Colton Herta at St Petersburg and by O’Ward in the second Texas race.

When they were good, they were very good, in that Newgarden’s wins at Mid-Ohio and Gateway and Power’s triumph in the second Indy road course race looked foregone conclusions as soon as they hit the front. But Power temporarily lost his qualifying mojo in the middle third of the season, and Newgarden faltered similarly in the final third, at least until that great pole position at Long Beach.

Newgarden, O'Ward and Power locked out the podium at Gateway, but none could match Palou's consistency

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

But nowhere highlighted Penske’s struggles with consistency better than qualifying at the Indy 500, when rookie Scott McLaughlin was the fastest of the Captain’s cars in 17th, and Power came worryingly close to not making the field.

Andretti Autosport’s Herta was the only driver to match Palou’s tally of three wins – St Petersburg, Laguna Seca and Long Beach – but could add only two more podiums, which is why he ended up fifth in the points. The inaugural race at Nashville should have resulted in another triumph, for there was no driver this year who had a greater speed advantage over his rivals at any track than Herta did that weekend. But, having been wrongfooted by caution periods, he found himself chasing down Ericsson for the win and shunted in sheer frustration.

Ericsson blossomed in 2021, and if he was a tad lucky to find himself at the front in both Detroit and Nashville he seized both opportunities and his confidence soared. He just needs to stop making costly little errors in qualifying so that he can bang on the door to Victory Lane more often

To be fair, that was his only significant error of the season, so is forgiveable, and can be put in his memory bank. The fact is, for the second straight year, Herta was Andretti Autosport’s only winner and, team allowing, in 2022 he could deliver Michael Andretti’s squad its first championship for a decade.

Ericsson blossomed in 2021, and if he was a tad lucky to find himself at the front in both Detroit and Nashville – especially given the size of his shunt in the early stages of the latter event! – he seized both opportunities and his confidence soared. He just needs to stop making costly little errors in qualifying so that he can bang on the door to Victory Lane more often.

There were two other race winners this year, and both found their glory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There was Meyer Shank Racing’s part-timer Castroneves, who taught the young studs a lesson in reading the road ahead, planning attacks, and throwing up strong defence, and duly delivered his fourth Indy 500 victory – and MSR’s first IndyCar win.

Two weeks earlier, Ed Carpenter Racing’s VeeKay joined Palou and O’Ward in the list of 2021’s first-time winners in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. But, after backing that up with a fine second place at Detroit, VeeKay injured himself falling off a bike and his season rather dissolved, failing to crack the top 15 ever again.

His talent suggests he has the potential to be battling with Palou, Herta and O’Ward for the next 20 years, should they all remain in IndyCar. But, of this quartet, VeeKay is lowest down the learning curve and urgently needs to throw himself into allowing ECR to help him rediscover their form together.

VeeKay scored his first win, while Herta matched Palou's win tally - both are billed as future title contenders

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images