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I am a little late to the party on this, as we were in Indianapolis over the weekend, when this news first broke. I was focused on the Gallagher Grand Prix, and also wanted to give things a few days to settle down to see if my initial opinion had changed from when I first heard about it on Friday afternoon.

Of course, I’m talking about the Alex Palou saga that took another strange and bizarre twist last week. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Alex Palou informed Zak Brown and Arrow McLaren last week that he did not intend to honor his contract to drive for them in 2024.

Keep in mind, Palou tried to weasel out of his contract with Chip Ganassi Racing last summer, so that he could drive for McLaren in 2023. Chip Ganassi had different thoughts and sued Palou while he was still driving for him late last season – and won!

The understanding among everyone was that Palou would be forced to drive under duress at Ganassi in 2023, before moving on to McLaren in 2024. But a funny thing happened throughout the 2023 season. Instead of just mailing in his results as a lame duck driver – Palou gave it his all. He is now in a position where he can clinch the championship at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, so long as he finishes ahead of his nearest challengers – Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden.

Palou has won four races this season, and Chip Ganassi Racing has won six races out of the fourteen run so far this season. Arrow McLaren has failed to win a race in 2023. In fact, you have to go back to Iowa of 2022 to find their last win – and that was only their second win last season.

The obvious question fans have been asking all season is why would Palou leave a team that wins races and championships, to move to a team that hasn’t won a race this season and only two last season. Of course, the answer is just as obvious as the question – money. To be fair, money isn’t the only reason Palou wanted to jump. He had already signed to be McLaren’s development driver in F1, and the possibility loomed that he might one day be one of the storied team’s two drivers in F1 one day.

As I said over a year ago, I’ve never considered Chip Ganassi to be a sympathetic figure; but when Palou tried to bolt with another year left on his contract – I found myself rooting for Ganassi to win his lawsuit. He did.

Now Palou has done the same thing to Zak Brown. Karma is a funny thing. It has a way of showing up at the strangest times. Brown was the one who went after Palou last summer. The story has it that Palou told Brown at the time that his contract was up at the end of 2022. Did Palou really say that or think that; or did Brown think that Ganassi would just let him walk? That is something we will never know the answer to.

Zak Brown has been known to poach drivers before, so I have to think he probably knew the status of Palou’s contract. He just underestimated Ganassi’s will to keep his prized driver.

It is my understanding that in the aftermath of Chip Ganassi suing Palou, one stipulation was that Palou could not sign with another team until September of 2023. Apparently, Palou had already signed a contract for 2024 with McLaren – going against that stipulation. Now Palou has informed Zak Brown that he will not honor that contract.

What a mess!

When I first heard the news at IMS last week, I had assumed Palou had found an Formula One ride – either Alpha Tauri or Williams – where he would land next season. But the more I talked with people that are closer to the situation than I am, it sounds as if he is likely now staying at Ganassi – the team he tried to leave a year ago.

My question is – who is Alex Palou listening to? It’s not his management team. Monaco Increase Management announced Friday that they were dropping Palou. They released a statement saying “Monaco Increase Management is bitterly disappointed to learn about Alex Palou’s decision to break an existing agreement with McLaren for 2024 and beyond. Together, we had built a relationship that we thought went beyond any contractual obligation and culminated in winning the 2021 IndyCar crown and tracing a path to F1 opportunities. Life goes on and we wish Alex all the best for his future achievements.”

Maybe he was listening to them a year ago, and he finally started asking himself the same question that fans have been asking for the last couple of months – why would he leave such a good situation where he wins races and championships, to move to a team that hasn’t won a race in thirteen months? Perhaps he decided that was more important and/or enjoyable than money and the fleeting dream of being an F1 driver.

As of last night, we still don’t know of Alex Palou’s 2024 racing destination, and we probably won’t know for a few more weeks. But all signs point to him staying at Ganassi.

Jokes were going around IMS this past weekend about taking up collections for the Alex Palou Legal Defense Fund. I expect Zak Brown to amass his lawyers and sue Palou, much like Ganassi did last year. I have no legal knowledge, so I won’t even try to predict how that will come out. But I have to say, from the sidelines – it’s nice to see Zak Brown get a taste of his own medicine. He apparently went after Palou over a year ago, even though he had another year left on his contract. Now that Palou has turned the tables on Brown and McLaren, Brown doesn’t seem amused.

Chip Ganassi released a spicy statement Saturday morning, which read; "Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t make a habit of commenting about contract situations. Subsequently, I have been quiet since day one of this story but now I feel I must respond. I grew up respecting the McLaren Team and their success. The new management does not get my same respect.”

“Alex Palou has been a part of our team and under contract since the 2021 season. It is the interference of that contract from McLaren that began this process and ironically, they are now playing the victim. Simply stated, the position of McLaren INDYCAR regarding our driver is inaccurate and wrong; he remains under contract with CGR.” Ouch!

Regardless of Palou’s enormous racing talent, his reputation will suffer from this. I’ve never hidden the fact that I am not an Alex Palou fan, and never have been. I recognize that he is a tremendous talent; but he has always come across as disingenuous to me. This latest development has done nothing to change my opinion. In fact, I spoke with a lot of people at IMS who knew my opinion of Palou. Some of them reluctantly conceded to me that I may have been right. If this was a winless driver trying to squirm out of two contracts in a little more than a year, they would have been crucified in the media. Because it is a soon-to-be two-time IndyCar champion, he seems to have been given a pass. But I have to think that any future teams, or even his current one, will have misgivings when discussing contracts in the future.

The big winner in all of this is Chip Ganassi – assuming Palou is staying there. He gets to keep his young star in the fold. If Palou is truly staying at Ganassi, I guess the biggest domino has now fallen, even though it never moved. The biggest loser in all of this is any driver than may have been in line for Palou’s seat – whether that was Marcus Ericsson, David Malukas or any other free-agent. Now they are all scrambling for Plan B.

Grab your popcorn, things are about to get very interesting!

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 16, 2023 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.