Written by Archie O’Reilly, Edited by Morgan Holiday
The blink of a bleary eye was all it seemed to take for Álex Palou to turn third place into an ultimately dominant victory at the Thermal Club after another demonic final stint.
It is fair to say nobody was really surprised, a true testament to what has already become one of IndyCar’s all-time great driver-and-team combinations.
As soon as Palou seized second place with 15 laps remaining, there was a sense of inevitability. That is not something often said in IndyCar, but Chip Ganassi Racing’s three-time champion is becoming an unparalleled force of the inevitable.
Performances that would seem almost entirely uncharted are becoming a repeatable art for the Spaniard, who continues to break new ground in the sixth year of his IndyCar career.
Something special is unfolding.
“We love this feeling,” Palou said after the race. “We never take anything for granted, anybody in the team. They just keep on working and giving me better cars and all the tools that I need to try and win and fight for the races. It’s been an incredible weekend with lots of speed and perfect execution.”
Palou started third in IndyCar’s inaugural points-paying visit to the track nestled in the Coachella Valley, edged out by the Arrow McLaren duo of Pato O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard in Saturday’s Fast Six after dominating much of qualifying.
Taking a hit by putting on used tyres early in the race, Palou endured an initial race-start duel with Lundgaard but did not mind settling into third place for what became the majority of the race. But as it did three weeks ago in St. Petersburg, it all felt meticulously calculated.
It can be a frustrating process, but Palou scarcely lets himself become agitated.
“It was especially hard for us when we were at the beginning of the race at a disadvantage on the tires compared to the No.5 and the No.7, when they started using their new alternates very early on,” Palou said. “You could see they’re going away.
“You’re like: ‘Man, I know I still need to go slow and keep my rear tyres on,’ although you see they’re pushing a little bit more than you. Then making the move, you need to have a little bit of patience but not too much. If you have too much patience, you’re going to struggle to pass.”
Once he realised that he could not pass Lundgaard, settling into a rhythm and carefully managing his race until his final pit stop on Lap 49 all felt part of a masterplan that is becoming ominously powerful for Palou. Then it was time to pounce.
It was eerily similar to the manner in which he stormed to a late victory after a similarly measured but unassuming race from an eighth-place start to open the season in St. Pete.
As was the case at Thermal, there was little to shout about in Palou’s St. Pete performance for the most part; he ran in the top five for most of the race but made few inroads into the lead battle. But there is a clear intention behind that approach.
Once it came to the final round of pit stops on the Floridian streets, Palou pounced to undercut his teammate, six-time champion Scott Dixon, to kick off his final stint. It was far from an accidental showcase of timing and precision.
The complexion at Thermal was slightly different as Palou emerged behind Lundgaard again after his third and last tyre change of the 65-lap race. But with 16 laps remaining on the three-mile road course, it was time for Palou to come truly into his own.
Having saved fresh softer alternate rubber until the final stint, Palou immediately hustled his way to the rear of Lundgaard, who had solidly run the entire race behind runaway teammate O’Ward. And much like in St. Pete, the race at the front came alive late on.
On Lap 50 - only one lap after Palou’s stop - a spellbinding duel spanning multiple corners ensued for second place. Lundgaard defended staunchly and fought back multiple times in a feisty but fair duel.
Inside. Outside. Cutback after cutback. But Palou was persistent.
“I knew Pato was five seconds up the road,” Lundgaard said. “So I tried to make him lose as much time fairly as possible. We had some fun but it didn’t really seem to bother him.”
Palou is not necessarily always credited enough for his wheel-to-wheel combat but, along with Lundgaard playing a significant role himself, he showcased sublime heads-up, intelligent driving combined with a perfect balance of aggression and accuracy.
Even in getting his elbows out, there is a continued sense of measure and control to Palou.
Yet again, he showed his unmatched capability of seizing at exactly the right time. But owing to the battle with Lundgaard, the gap between Palou and O’Ward was a hefty 9.5 seconds as the defending champion finally moved up to second.
But the passage of driving that ensued from Palou felt special.
O’Ward’s lead was brutally scythed into. Again offering a sense of déjà vu from events in St. Pete, traffic at the rear of the lead lap became a factor. To O’Ward’s credit, he clinically dealt with the slower cars. But unlike his troubles passing Sting Ray Robb in St. Pete, Palou was also decisive in his own dealing with the to-be-lapped cars.
Within three laps of Palou passing Lundgaard, both he and O’Ward had passed the traffic and a near-10-second advantage was cut to beneath two seconds. By Lap 56, Palou had made light work of passing O’Ward at the end of the backstretch into Turn 7.
“I knew I was going to catch him, for sure,” Palou said confidently. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to pass him once I caught him. It just depended on the tyres. I couldn’t push way too hard to get fast to him because then I would have no more tyres to finish the race.
“So I had to be a little bit patient at the beginning but I knew we were going to get to him. The question was if I was going to be able to overtake him and then pull away a little bit or not. So everything worked out perfectly today.”
It felt like Palou came from nowhere, but the repetition of the same pattern rules out coincidence. Palou’s ability to manage his pace and up the ante at the crucial moments to execute killer final stints is something extraordinary.
After passing O’Ward, Palou needed to execute a masterclass in management to nurse his alternate tyres to the finish. But even then, and with more cars on the tail-end of the lead lap to contend with, Palou seamlessly drew out a gap that made his victory appear a thrashing one.
Despite only leading 13 laps, his performance could be considered a thrashing - the 10-plus-second margin over O’Ward at the chequered flag suggests so. It did end up being a demoralisation and obliteration of the competition again.
But Palou continually thrashes the opposition in his own, unique manner - a feat that takes demoralising to another level.
He tears down his competition in the cruelest way of all. He lures them into a false sense of security - O’Ward the latest victim having led 51 laps before being passed late in the race. Through it all though, there is a retrospective sense that Palou was always the driver in control.
Dixon was the last driver to win the opening two rounds of a season, done en-route to taking the championship in 2020. And by winning in St. Pete and Thermal to kick off 2025, Palou has become the latest.
“Even to win the first race of the year at St. Pete, it felt amazing,” he said. “You always go through a weekend wanting to win, never expecting to win but maybe expecting to fight.
“There’s so much stuff that needs to go right in order to win an IndyCar race: all the pit stops, your tyre mileage, also fuel mileage. There’s so much stuff that needs to go right that it’s tough to get it. It’s amazing to start with a double win this season.”
Two wins equals the tally of victories that Palou achieved in his third championship-winning season in four years with Ganassi last season. But testament to his and the team’s unshakable hunger, he admitted that he felt his form dropped in 2024.
He is continually striving for more and looking to get even better.
Yet such is Palou’s all-time great level, he still convincingly won the championship in 2024. He set the standard so high by clinching the title before the final round in 2023 - finishing no lower than eighth as he won five races and took 10 podiums compared to two wins and six podiums in 2024 - that anything but a repeat was going to feel somewhat of a downturn.
“I would say every sport, if you don’t change just because it's been successful, they’ll catch up really, really quick,” Palou said on media day in January. “Obviously I’m not going to go crazy and change all my stuff. But I’m trying to change some stuff - physically, mentally and the way I drive.
“Hopefully I can push myself in areas that I’ve been struggling the past season. We’re going to change a little bit, see if it works and see if we can continue to be up front. We know it’s going to be tough. Everybody, we start from zero.”
In many ways, Thermal feels like a victory that epitomises what is rocketing Palou into the list of the IndyCar greats only six years into his career in the series.
His raw speed is exceptional, but qualifying at the very front is hardly a necessity as Palou is able to dictate and destroy so long as he is always lurking in the shadows of the ballpark. That patience in waiting for his moment was exactly what secured him the win - the 13th of his IndyCar career - at Thermal.
That is not to mention Palou was unwell for most of the Thermal weekend, making his feat even more impressive. But even that misfortune did not bother or distract him unduly.
“There’s no excuses,” he said. “S**t happens.”
The synergy with his No.10 team and their own table-topping decision-making is also an invaluable factor in Palou’s success. It takes a team as well as a world-class driver, and as many fell by the wayside, Palou was again put in a position to execute the race-winning strategy.
“We can’t get it done without everybody on the team doing their job - with race engineer Julian Robertson, assistant engineer Blair Bean and performance engineer Brian Welling,” said Barry Wanser, Palou’s strategist and team manager at Ganassi. “We’re constantly talking about the strategy almost every lap. The team was flawless in the pits as well.”
There is a sense of serenity and composure where there could easily be chaos. That could have been the case in a race of unknowns at Thermal.
“It was pure luck how the race was going to play out,” Wanser suggested. But this far down the line, Palou and the No.10 car’s ability to be on the right side of ‘luck’ cannot solely be down to fortune, can it?
As others have started the season scrappily, Palou has already been the one constant. And after only two races, his championship lead already stands at 39 points over O’Ward.
There were jokes in the press conference after St. Pete as to whether Palou could be denied the championship three-peat.
“It’s Round One,” said Josef Newgarden, laughing the question off. “It’s Round One, dude. Let’s see how it goes.”
Despite Newgarden's dismissal, there does seem a genuine threat of Palou running away and hiding in a manner never before seen before the season has even begun in earnest.
There was not a remote sense that O’Ward - one of the series’ best drivers performing near the top of his game all weekend - misstepped at all. Yet Palou still snatched the victory from his hands in the light of day and surged into the distance.
“It just seems like every time someone is winning, it’s always Palou in the No.10,” said a frustrated O’Ward. “He’s obviously figured it out.”
There are always claims bandied around that a sense of inevitability and expectation can make things boring. But in a series so famed for its competitiveness and unpredictability, it is hard not to stop in your tracks and appreciate just how special what Palou is producing is.
Every time he hits the track, he slots himself further into truly rarefied air. Modern greatness and history is unfolding before our very eyes.
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