Alex Palou Celebrates Third Consecutive NTT Series Championship

Alex Palou is a history maker and has changed the game of IndyCar forever. That was proven when he lifted the championship trophy for the third straight season and his fourth in the last five seasons. Despite a lawsuit and a potential sudden team move hanging over his head, he overcame it all to win.

His Incredible Season!

Palou came into 2025 with two straight titles and many fans praying for his downfall, but a few things would prevent that. One being the undeniable struggle of Penske this season. Usually, Ganassi’s greatest competition had two wins apiece and had nobody close to finishing even close to them. The greatest competition is his teammates and Andretti, who’s still in their “race-winning but can’t quite put together a championship yet” phase. And of course, McLaren IndyCar.

None were close to Palou this year, however. Starting the season, he won five of the first six races of the season, only missing the perfect sweep with a 2nd place finish at Long Beach. He won three more races before the end of the season, winning at Road America and Iowa, which was more than enough to clinch the title. He cleared second place, which was McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, by nearly 200 total points.

Palou’s Oval Improvement and Finally Conquering the Indy 500!

The biggest takeaway from 2025 was how much he improved at ovals. Despite his recent dominance, the ovals of America always were too much for the Spaniard. He had no oval wins ever heading into the 2025 season. That changed in 2025 with not one but two victories at ovals out of the 5 oval races in the 2025 season. Earning the most total points out of all drivers at ovals with 252 total, and, of course, winning the biggest oval race of them all as well.

With 14 laps to go, Palou made an aggressive move on ex-Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson. As the Swede was held up by two lap cars, Palou took advantage and dove down to the inside of Ericsson and the two lap cars, and he got past all of them to take the lead. Palou’s first Indy 500 win! Completing his IndyCar legacy and making sure nobody can chip at his legacy anymore!

Palou’s Dominance In Stats!

To fully understand how dominant this season was, we’ll consult the stats. Palou’s eight total wins were five more than the driver with the second-most wins this season. Kyle Kirkwood earned three wins to lead himself to a 4th-place finish in the points. To say Palou led the most laps would be telling such a small part of the story, with Palou leading 500 more laps than the driver with the 2nd most laps led on the year. 778 to O’Ward’s 258 on the year.

Palou earned the most poles of the year, earning six poles while being one of only three drivers who had multiple poles all year, the others being O’Ward and Herta, both with two total poles for 2025. He blew everyone else out with top 5s and top 10s too, with him having 14 total top 5s, with the closest driver to matching that amount being championship runner-up O’Ward. Palou’s 15 top 10s were three more than the drivers with the next most top 10s, those being Dixon and O’Ward.

Palou’s Lawsuit!

All this, and he’s had a lawsuit with McLaren hanging over his head for years now! McLaren is suing Palou for $30 million for breach of contract after Palou signed with McLaren for a 3-year deal in 2022. He backed out and signed back to Ganassi, where he currently still races. If McLaren wins the lawsuit, they could pull him back into driving for them even as their F1 reserve driver. Recently, major financial details were revealed in the lawsuit. Like pay driver Noah Siegel is paying McLaren $1.25 million to drive the final 10 races of the 2024 season.

Plus, Arrow McLaren paid over $150,000 in driver salaries when split between those drivers: Malukas earned $25,000, Ilott earned $50,000, and Pourchaire earned $87,500. They were all replacements for Palou, who tried out but didn’t stick.