IndyCar
Alex Palou: Chasing Chip Ganassi Racing and INDYCAR History heading into Toronto
TORONTO, ON (July 20, 2025) — Alex Palou and the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda team are looking to make team history when the NTT INDYCAR SERIES takes to the streets for the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto.
Palou and the No. 10 team are off to the hottest start to an NTT INDYCAR SERIES season in sixty years! Palou’s victory in last Sunday’s race at Iowa Speedway was the Spainard’s seventh victory in 2025.
Could Palou be putting together the best season ever in INDYCAR and at CGR?
“Certainly we’ve had some great drivers on our team, and he’s right there, at worst, shoulder-to-shoulder with all the rest of them. You’ve got to talk about Franchitti and Montoya and Dixon and all the champions we’ve had, Vasser and Zanardi,” said Chip Ganassi.
That’s no small praise from a team owner that has amassed 16-Championships in 35-years. The team owner who has fielded cars for drivers Arie Luyendyk, Michael Andretti, Bryan Herta, Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kenny Brack, the late Dan Wheldon, Dario Franchitti and Six-time Series Champion Scott Dixon.
If you base it on wins in a season leading to a Championship at CGR, that honor would go jointly to Zanardi and Montoya. Zanardi won 7-times in his 1998 Championship season and JPM amassed 7-wins in his 1999 Championship season.
Scott Dixon, who has won six Championships with CGR in the No. 9 Honda, visited the top step on the podium 6-times in his 2008 Championship season.
“Some of us have had years like that where everything just clicks,” said Dixon. “For him and for the 10 car group, it’s firing on all cylinders. You can’t say enough good things about what that whole group is doing. They’re just doing a hell of a job.”
Dario Franchitti won three Championships at CGR winning 5-races in his 2009 title year, three races in his 2010 Championship season and four wins in his 2011 title triumph.
Vasser won 4-times in 1996 leading CGR to their first of four straight titles and Zanardi added three more for seven team wins in ’96.
Palou’s three wins in four races to start 2025 just missed out in tying Dixon’s three-wins-in-a-row to start the Covid-altered 2020 season.
Palou’s best season at Chip Ganassi Racing, until now, was 2023 where he racked up 5-wins en route to his 2nd series title.
Team Manager Barry Wanser, who has worked with guys like Montoya, Franchitti and Dixon says Palou is as talented as anyone who has ever driven for the Ganassi team.
“He’s right up there with the Montoya’s, the Franchitti’s and the Dixon’s,” said Wanser of Palou. “Alex basically brings to us the same thing Dario did to the 10 car. He gave us all the options. So when you look at strategy and options during the race, whether it’s before the race or the tire choice, the starting tire, the setup of the car, and then what he has to do for us in the race to perform against everybody, he gives us all of those options.”
The best seasons ever in IndyCar were AJ Foyt’s 10-win season in 1964, a season where he won 7-races in-a-row and 10-of-13.
Al Unser Sr. matched Foyt’s 10-win total in 1970, winning 10-of-18-races that season.
Palou reached 7 wins this season in 12-races, something Al Unser Jr accomplished in the 1994 season.
Mario Andretti won 9-races in 1969 – including the Indianapolis 500 followed by Foyt’s 7-win campaign in 1974 that Zanardi matched in 1997 and Montoya repeated in 1999. Paul Tracy, Cristiano da Matta and Sebastien Bourdais are other drivers who have scored 7-wins in-a-season.
The eight wins by the Ganassi team in 2025 are two wins shy of the team record of 10-wins in a season, set in 1998 by Zanardi (7) and Jimmy Vasser (3) and duplicated by Dixon (5) and Franchitti (5) in 2009.
Time will tell where Palou matches up against these all-time greats, so instead of complaining and whining on social media after the races Palou wins, sit back, relax and appreciate what you are witnessing, it’s history in the making.
SPEEDWAY, IN (May 9, 2026) – Christian Lundgaard finally finished a race ahead of Alex Palou, winning Saturday’s Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Lundgaard passed David Malukas on lap 68 as the pair staged a thrilling battle from turn 3 through the turns 5/6 chicane, where the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet driver completed the pass.
“It probably looks more spectacular from the outside than it really did inside the helmet,” explained Lundgaard, who led 20 of the 85-laps. “I knew I had one chance, maybe two on David at that time. I tried to set him up for 2 and actually make the slingshot to be on the inside for turn 4, but he was pretty slow kind of through the kink of 3. I thought, okay, F it, I’m going to stay on the outside and see how it goes.”
The victory was the second career win for Lundgaard and his third podium of the season, his first two were finishes behind Palou.
Malukas came home in second place, 4.6713 seconds behind Lundgaard.
“You know, I could be a little bit more aggressive and push him wide, whatever, but I think it was fair racing, and he made a proper move,” said Malukas. “I came in thinking this was going to be our hardest race of the whole season, and it ended up being our best result yet, which it was just fantastic.”
Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Graham Rahal finished third in the No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda to tie his season-best result.
“I was good at starting stints,” explained Rahal. “I could really close the gap there, but later in the stints the rear would go off. We’ve just got a little work to do. I think missing practice, half of it at least, kind of put us on our back foot with the rear grip and never quite got there. But look, I thought we put a great race together, great strategy, great calls by Brian, Eve, and the entire group, and great stops.”
Penske’s Josef Newgarden finished fourth followed by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, who rounded out the top 5 and maintained his Championship points lead over Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood.
It didn’t take long for lots of on-track action as Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist, who started third, locked up his brakes going into turn 1 and made contact with Arrow McLaren Racing’s Pato O’Ward, who was running in second behind Palou, who started on the pole.
Rosenqvist spun O’Ward into the grass and in the ensuing mayhem behind him several cars made contact. Newgarden couldn’t get slowed down and nerfed Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, turning the No. 9 Honda to the right, directly into Caio Collet. The full-field caution slowed the rest of the field as the AMR Safety Team tended to the pileup. All three were able to continue as did Rosenqvist and O’Ward.
The reshuffled lineup found Palou leading Malukas in second place but that didn’t last long at Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood quickly out-braked the No. 12 Chevy going into turn one.
That wasn’t the only incident of the day, which had teams scrambling on strategy.
Ed Carpenter Racing’s Alexander Rossi suffered a hybrid failure on lap 20 and came to rest on the main straightway. Race control mysteriously called for a local caution in that area despite Rossi being stuck in the car. A frustrated Rossi could be seen waving his steering wheel from the cockpit but it took him climbing out of the car to bring out the full course caution.
Cautions breed cautions and on lap 28 Sting Ray Robb got into Marcus Armstrong and when Kyffin Simpson tried to avoid that contact, Rosenqvist made contact with the No. 8 Sunoco Honda, sending the No. 60 up into the air bringing out another caution.
LONG BEACH, CA (April 19, 2026) – A great pit stop helped Alex Palou pass Felix Rosenqvist in the pits and Palou did the rest, winning Sunday’s NTT IndyCar Series Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
“Incredible,” said Palou, who picked up his third win of the season and 22nd of his IndyCar career. “Feel so, so lucky with the opportunity I had to win the 500 last year, the Long Beach GP this year, it just feels like I’m living on this amazing cloud of happiness.”
Rosenqvist was out front when the caution flag flew on Lap 57 for debris in turn four, which set up the showdown between the Meyer Shank Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing pit crews.
“This full-course yellow put everything on that pit stop,” said Palou. “The guys did an incredible job once again.”
“Having the pit location and the pit crew we have, it certainly was on the top of our minds coming down pit lane knowing we have a shot at getting the win here,” said Barry Wanser, No. 10 Team Manager. “Again, the guys came through.”
“That last pit cycle was kind of the defining moment,” said Rosenqvist, who led a race-high 51-laps. “I don’t even think we had that bad of a stop. We had to come around the 14. I don’t know if Alex had an open in. Details like that matter. It didn’t seem like a super slow stop, but he probably nailed it or his crew.”
Despite falling short of a win, Rosenqvist said there were plenty of positives to take away from the team’s trip to the West Coast.
“I think all in all we got to be happy as a weekend for us at Meyer Shank Racing. We had a win yesterday with Nick in IMSA. We had a pole there as well, then a pole here and a P2. We just fell short of a grand slam.”
Scott Dixon finished third in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda, giving team owner Chip Ganassi two cars on the podium and the 6-time series Champion his best finish of the season
“Huge weekend for the Ganassi cars,” said Dixon. “I think probably one of the best for qualifying between all us, which was really good. It was nice just to have a clean weekend, no major issues, no damage, no mess-ups or anything like that. That was a lot of fun.”
Palou and Dixon’s teammate Kyffin Simpson brought the No. 8 Sunoco Honda home in tenth place, so all three CGR cars finished in the Top 10.
Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood finished fourth after starting third and gave up the Championship lead to Palou. Kirkwood now trails the four-time Series Champion by 17-points.
Pato O’Ward rounded out the Top 5 in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
Next up for the IndyCar Series is two days of testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on April 28-29 as teams get ready for the Indianapolis 500.
The next race is the Sonsio Grand Prix on Saturday, May 9, on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course at IMS, which kicks off the Month of May.
LONG BEACH, CA (April 18,, 2026) – Felix Rosenqvist is on the pole position for Sunday’s NTT IndyCar Series Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach after turning a fast lap of of 1 minute, 7.4635 seconds in the No. 60 SiriusXM/Acura Honda.
The pole capped a great day for Meyer Shank Racing who on the IMSA race on Saturday.
“So great to put it on pole here and it’s been a long time, so it feels good,” said Rosenqvist. “But what a day for Meyer Shank Racing with the win in the IMSA race today and now the pole for the IndyCar race.”
Pato O’Ward, Rosenqvist’s good friend and former teammate, will start from the front row after qualifying a season-best second at 1:07.5076 in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
“That was nerve-wracking to watch my ole buddy Pato do his run, and I wasn’t sure if we’d get it,” said Rosenqvist. “But the SiriusXM Green Day Acura has been great and hope we can have a good day tomorrow.”
“This is by far the best qualifying day I’ve had,” said O’Ward. “I’ve been happy with the car I’ve been given from practice one. Hats off to Arrow McLaren and Team Chevy. I know we’re leading their pack.”
Four-time Series Champion Alex Palou will start from the third position in the No. 10 OpenAI Chip Ganassi Racing Honda with 2026 Championship points leader Kyle Kirkwood right beside in the No. 27 JM Bullion/Gold.com Andretti Global Honda.
David Malukas will start fifth in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet, the best qualifying car for Team Penske.
Six-time Series Champion Scott Dixon will start sixth in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. The qualifying effort was Dixon’s best of 2026.
Next up is a 30-minute warmup Sunday at 1 p.m. ET (FS1, FOX One, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls).
The 90-lap race around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile iconic temporary street circuit starts at 5:30 p.m. ET (FOX, FOX Deportes, FOX One, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls).
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