With the 2026 IndyCar season set to begin, the consensus amongst drivers and teams is clear: They can’t let Alex Palou repeat what he did in 2025.
Heading into last year’s Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Palou’s status as the best driver on the grid was already established. He had won back-to-back championships and three of the last four. But 12 months ago, no one could’ve truly anticipated the tear Palou would go on.
Palou – who drives the No. 10 car for Chip Ganassi Racing – preceded to win five of the first six races, including his first Indianapolis 500 victory. Palou went on to win three more races, as he had the Astor Challenge Cup secured with two races left in the season, which hadn’t been done since 2002.
Palou’s chokehold on the sport has the rest of the grid wondering how it can catch up. The Spaniard’s dominance has everyone wondering if he can be dethroned in 2026.
“He’s definitely the standard right now and who everybody is chasing,” Palou’s CGR teammate Scott Dixon said. “You can see clearly when we went into the deep dive of just things where we just didn’t execute well as a group or myself or whatever. It’s nice to see how it’s done properly last year.”
Palou isn’t entering the season aiming to win another eight races. He’s approaching this year as he has in the past, which has led to plenty of success.
“I think 2025 was so strange, so good, so magical, in a way, for the 10 car that everybody understands that it’s very hard to get there,” Palou said. “That doesn’t mean that nobody can or that I cannot do it again, but you need so many things to go right to get eight wins, to win the 500, to win the championship.
“Like, if we win six now, it’s going to feel like a failure? Because I’ve never won six before (2025). … Although I would love to have another season like 2025, I am pretty certain that it’s probably not going to happen again for me, but I’ll try.”
Palou’s eight wins last year were tied for the fourth most in IndyCar history. A.J. Foyt (1964) and Al Unser (1970) won 10 each while winning USAC championships, and Mario Andretti won nine in 1969.
Last year, 196 championship points separated Palou (711 points) and second place Pato O’Ward (515). That was wider than the gap between O’Ward and 10th-place finisher Scott McLaughlin.
O’Ward – who joked he wanted to run Palou’s No. 10 car over with the garbage truck he drove in a Fox commercial – is looking for his first career championship after three straight finishes in the top five. To do so, he’ll have to surpass Palou.
“I mean, I obviously don’t want to trash his car,” O’Ward said. “I want to be able to beat him. I think there’s a lot of drive and hunger, not just from me but from the team. I believe everybody else in the paddock wants to do exactly that. It’s such a competitive championship. I do think he and Ganassi have made it look very easy. So for us, it’s just important to make sure that we just got to execute.”
As O’Ward quipped about running over Palou’s car, some drivers evaded even saying his name when mentioning his excellence.
“There is still this one guy we got beaten by every time,” said Christian Lundgaard, O’Ward’s teammate at Arrow McLaren. “For us this year, it’s kind of minimizing his wins, right? I don’t think he’s going to have the same season this year as he had last year. I think everybody has spent the entire offseason trying to catch up. I think we’ve worked harder than everybody else. Therefore, I think we’ll see some good results.”
Said McLaughlin, of Team Penske: “I thought my start to the year last year was strong. But there’s one guy that won five races in a row, and we somehow needed to combat against that, and that’s ultimately up to us to just execute. I think for me, I’m just focused on executing and seeing what will happen.”
What Palou accomplished in 2025 solidified him as one of the most prominent drivers in American open-wheel history. His four championships now put him in a tie for fourth most all-time behind Foyt (seven) and Dixon (six).
Palou said he took about two months to celebrate the season with his family in Spain before gearing up to do it again in 2026.
“You need to close that chapter and start preparing for the new one, start preparing for the new season,” Palou said. “Because everybody starts with zero points on the board in St. Pete. If I finish 18th, you guys are going to write about 18th and not how I won eight races in 2025. That’s the truth.”
Palou is the favorite to win a fourth straight IndyCar championship, which hasn’t been done since Sebastian Bourdais did it in the Champ Car World Series from 2004 to 2007.
Outside of Palou, the rest of the field was fairly even in 2025. There was a smaller gap (63 points) between O’Ward and Dixon, who finished third. The three drivers who finished behind Palou came from three different teams: Arrow McLaren (O’Ward), Chip Ganassi Racing (Dixon) and Andretti Global (Kyle Kirkwood). And that’s without Team Penske, which usually has multiple drivers near the top of the standings, having anyone finish in the top eight of the field.
“When I look at the teams, they’re all pretty even across the board for that front group,” said Will Power, who’s moving from Team Penske to Andretti Global this year. “It was just one guy extracting the most out of his car, and it was Palou. If you took him out of the equation, it’s not like the other Ganassi guys are as dominant as he is.”
There are two ways to look at the balanced field that trails Palou. One could applaud it and argue, as Power did, that there’s not one team that’s necessarily head and shoulders above the rest. Someone else could contest that not having an equally dominant driver only makes Palou’s quest for more championships easier, as there’s not one central rival for Palou to overcome.
Dixon, Power and Josef Newgarden are the only other active full-timers who have won championships. All three of them are at least 35 years old, while Palou, who’s 28, has been leaps and bounds better than every other driver in their 20s.
So, as the 18-race 2026 season is set to begin, the question is, can anyone pass Palou?
“We keep saying he can’t raise the bar the previous year,” O’Ward said. “I have no idea how he’s going to raise the bar from last year. If he does, then I think everyone is toast. We got to keep chasing, keep on going and seeing how we can make him slow a little bit more. It’s been too easy for him.”
Said Dixon: “It’s a new year now. Everybody can turn a page and crack on, and it’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out. But last year, he was exceptional.”
Zion Brown is IndyStar’s motorsports reporter. Follow him at@z10nbr0wn. Get IndyStar’s motorsports coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Motor Sports newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar season preview: Can anyone beat Alex Palou in 2026? Drivers react
