2021 IndyCar Champ Alex Palou Realistic About F1 Prospects

• IndyCar champion Alex Palou is this close to F1, and that may be as close as he ever gets.

• The 2021 IndyCar winner even sued team owner Chip Ganassi to get out of his contract, but he didn't win.

• He has driven McLaren F1 cars three times and loved every lap.

Alex Palou, the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series champion, has found success in every type of racing he’s ever tried.

He started karting at age six and won the WSK Euro Series, then got third place in the Euroformula Open Championship—formerly called the Spanish Formula 3 Championship and considered one of the stepping stones to Formula 1—followed by two years in GP3, a season of World Series Formula V8 3.5 and then a full year in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship before heading to Japan where he continued racing. But in 2020 he got a ride in the NTT IndyCar Series for Dale Coyne Racing and he won the championship the next year for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Then there's this. Palou is one of only a small handful of IndyCar drivers to have been invited by McLaren to test one of its F1 cars, and in late 2022 he got to drive an MCML35M, the car McLaren campaigned in the 2021 and 2022 F1 seasons.

In all, Palou drove McLaren F1 cars car three time—in free practice as part of the United States Grand Prix at COTA, and in sessions at Barcelona in Catalunya and at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. He did well enough that he was signed as a reserve driver for McLaren’s F1 team, while carrying on with his duties for Chip Ganassi Racing running the full schedule of IndyCar races, where he sits fifth in the championship after two rounds.

In the middle of the 2022 season, he was in a lawsuit to try and get out of his Ganassi IndyCar contract and join McLaren. At the time, his role at McLaren wasn’t defined beyond being an F1 reserve driver. But Daniel Ricciardo was maybe going to be moving around and opportunity seemed to be in the air, so who knew? Palou ultimately was held to his contract with CGR, which runs through the end of 2023.

Autoweek caught up with Palou in the days running up to the April 16 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The first thing we wanted to know was what his situation was with the McLaren Formula 1 team.

“I'm doing Miami (Grand Prix as a reserve driver) and then doing the rest of the (F1) races once IndyCar is done,” he said.

Most drivers in any paddock anywhere would have liked to be part of more races with McLaren in F1, but right now Palou’s concentrating on IndyCar, per the court's decision.

“I had obviously the chance to go to more races (in F1) but I thought it was better just to focus on IndyCar and once that's done go to F1 races. So yeah, that's a plan. It's going to be a busy year. But super exciting as well.”

Palou’s role as a reserve driver in McLaren F1 is fairly limited, anyway. F1 rules dictate that teams must put reserve drivers in their cars for two sessions in the course of the season. McLaren has used the opportunity to get IndyCar drivers Colton Herta, Pato O’Ward and Palou behind the wheel. All three did well, and Palou was given reserve driver status. Just what that means is open to interpretation. Barring any unforeseen circumstance, his role with the McLaren F1 team now is just to “help out” if he can.

Unless, say, maybe Lando Norris might retire suddenly?

“Yeah, I mean, he's not gonna retire suddenly,” Palou said with a smile.