Alex Palou is human after all, but the INDYCAR title still remains his to lose

Bob Pockrass

FOX Motorsports Insider

Alex Palou is in a slump.

OK, not really.

Palou won five of the first six INDYCAR races — including the Indianapolis 500 — to start the 2025 season before finishes of 25th (when he got wrecked) and eighth in his past two starts.

His points lead with nine races remaining has gone from 112 to 73. More finishes like he had his last two weeks and he won’t be the 2025 champion as most expected after such a strong start.

“You always keep an eye on it, obviously, but I would say that focusing on the championship, that only goes on the last two races, whenever it’s like you already know that hopefully you’re in the fight or not,” Palou said. “Hopefully it’s only yourself and three other drivers, and you know what you need to do or you know who you need to fight for.”

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver, who has won the last two INDYCAR titles and three of the last four, shouldn’t sweat too much. The series heads to Road America (Sunday, 1:30 p.m. ET on FOX) this weekend, a track where Palou has two wins on his resume.

“The way we got here was by racing hard and going aggressive on strategies and trying to go for wins, and I think that’s the way we need to continue racing,” Palou said. “Hopefully we can have a look at who we’re racing against towards the last two, three races of the year.”

Palou has a 73-point lead on Pato O’Ward, 75 points on Kyle Kirkwood (whose three wins make him the only driver other than Palou to win this year), 114 on Christian Lundgaard and 129 on six-time champion Scott Dixon.

“Now we’re fighting against everybody, so it just doesn’t really make much sense to count points,” Palou said. “It’s good to have a look at them when you’re leading and see that hopefully we can extend a little bit more the gap.”

Palou still has what many would say is a comfortable lead. He said he doesn’t worry about the last two results when it comes to the standings because, as he said, he hasn’t focused on the standings yet.

Kirkwood, who lost 24 points because of a postrace technical penalty following the Indianapolis 500, has won the last two races heading into Road America.

“It didn’t add any pressure at all just because I didn’t ever think that it was done or it was ours or anything like that,” Palou said. “I knew that we just had a perfect start of the season, and obviously you could see a big point difference.

“I expect that it’s going to get very tight. It’s going to make it interesting. I just hope that we are there at the end to fight for it.”

Palou isn’t looking for a couple of wins to put the competition for the championship in an impossible position to win the title. He’s looking for a couple of wins to, well, win races.

“We were lacking performance [last week] and we struggled a lot,” Palou said. “It’s not concerning, like, urgency, but it’s obviously not good. … There’s always urgency to win. Nobody likes to see somebody else win.

“But I think at the same time, we got used to too much success. Not we as the team, but everybody expects us to win every single weekend. It’s not possible, unfortunately.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.