How Alex Palou captured pole for the 110th running of the Indy 500

Alex Palou puts Sunday’s pole-winning drive for the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 over his 2023 qualifying triumph. 

The reigning and four-time IndyCar Series champion, who also comes in as the defending race winner, barely made it into the Fast 12. Then improved significantly to make the Fast Six, where he delivered a haymaker to rivals with a 232.248mph four-lap average. 

Although this is second pole for Pal ou, driver of the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” it’s sweeter than his first in 2023. 

“This feels so much better,” Palou told Motorsport.com. “In 2023, we had the best cars. We had really fast cars all month, since day one, since lap one, and I knew that we were gonna fight for pole. Didn’t know we were gonna get the pole, but knew that we were with the fastest cars.

“Today was not like that. Today was like, ‘Oh man, we’re struggling, let’s see if we can get in the Fast 12.’ We barely make it. We adjust a little bit, everybody struggles a little bit, and we’re still the same because that’s the conditions that we ran. Then we kind of make a couple more changes and we make it in the Fast Six. We’re like, ‘Oh man, this is great. It’s like a win, but now that we’re here, we might as well just try and get the pole.’ So, we made more changes, changed gears, changed wings, and that thing was pulling.”

2023 pole vs. 2026 pole

Although Palou’s pole in 2023 came with significantly more pace, courtesy of a four-lap run of 234.217mph, he puts this one higher because it was more challenging.

“I was more on edge,” said Palou, 29. “We were more struggling with the car in general than in ‘23. We didn’t have the hybrid then.”

When the Spaniard rolled off pit lane and out onto the track to begin the warm-up lap for his final run, the intensity of the wind gusts were apparent, especially down the backstretch.

“I could see that the car was pulling very good on the back straight,” Palou said. “And that it was almost getting to the limit of that sixth gear that I knew was very tall, and I was like, ‘Man, this is gonna be good, we just need to pull the fifth gear up front with that amount of wind,’ and it was barely there. I was like, ‘Oh man,’ it doesn’t look incredible. 

“The first lap was great, the tires are new, and everything normally feels good, otherwise forget about qualifying at 500, yeah, forget about it. So first lap was great, then I started sliding a little bit, four wheels, balance is great, like I don’t need more front, I don’t need more rear, I just need more overall grip, because the car is taking me closer to the wall on exits, but I kind of adjust a little bit my tools, and third lap was a little bit worse, but fourth lap was actually better. For some reason the balance came back to me, and with the deployment on the hybrid, we gained quite a lot of speed, so yeah, it was great, it was good.”

So the third lap was sketchier than the fourth?

“Yeah, it just felt like I struggled a little bit more,” he said. 

“I was like, ‘Oh man, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it.’ It was like the exit of Turn 2, exit of Turn 3, exit of (Turn) 1 was good, exit of (Turn) 4 was okay. Exit of (Turn) 2 and (Turn) 3 was like, you want to finish here, and then suddenly the car takes you there [pointing roughly two feet of difference], and you’re like, ‘Man, next lap if it’s the same, I’ll just end up too close. I’ll do like Takuma (Sato),’ where he’s like, ‘Whoa.’ But no, for some reason, maybe it was the wind, it kind of put it back where I needed it to be.”

Losing out to the ‘inevitable’ Palou

Alex Palou, No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: Brandon Badraoui / Lumen via Getty Images

It was interesting to see the different reactions from the field after Palou’s seemingly inevitable prowess to end up on top. ECR’s Alexander Rossi, who was knocked off by Palou in the Fast Six, was ecstatic with second. Meanwhile, Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist, who dominated the ‘all cars’ portion of qualifying, where he set the fastest four-lap average on the day at 232.599mph, and led the Fast 12, was dejected to not finish it with a pole. 

Rosenqvist’s demeanor was especially telling as every week at least one driver in the field ends up disappointed after being on the wrong end of a battle with Palou. 

So, it seemed worth asking Palou if he’s aware of how the field responds when they’re defeated by him, because he can go from struggling, like he did to barely make the Fast 12, before catapulting straight to the top. Time and time again, it’s almost like taking his rivals’ souls a little bit.

“No,” he said. “I mean, I’m aware that today (Sunday) was big, especially on a very dense or compact day. We didn’t really have time to look at data and analyze and see how we were gonna make it faster, but I have such a great team around me that I knew we were gonna be able to make it just a bit faster, and then just a little bit more. Then that’s all we needed. 

“That’s all we needed to try and put everybody under pressure. For them to make it, they had to be perfect. I don’t know what happened to Felix, but that car and him, they were a lot faster. I didn’t think that we were gonna be able to catch him, but yeah, it worked out for us.”

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– The Motorsport.com Team

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