Two-time defending IndyCar champ Alex Palou's next challenge: Conquering ovals

Alex Palou, the two-time defending IndyCar Series champion, is coming off his third championship in four years as he heads into 2025. It will be his fifth year with Chip Ganassi Racing, which a few years ago would have been a surprise after he had signed to join McLaren, sparking a legal battle that continues to this day and had Palou semi-jokingly thanking his many lawyers in his championship trophy acceptance speech.

Palou sat down with FOX Sports at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after last season to talk about winning the 2024 and looking ahead to 2025 — where he hopes to finally earn that first win on an oval.

How would you characterize the 2024 championship season? Compared to the others, not as many wins, but a slew of top-5s?

It's been different. Every season is different. I would say we were super lucky in 2023 with so many wins, super consistent, lots of podiums. This one was a bit more challenging. We got two wins, which they are hard to get. In IndyCar nowadays, it's super hard to get a win, so still getting to [win] felt great. But it was a bit more about consistency. I would say we got a bunch of top-5s, a little bit of drama here and there with Iowa, where we crashed and Detroit, where we couldn't score many points either. It's been a complete year [in 2024]. I would say this is my favorite one so far. My daughter was born back in 2023 in December. So it was the first time that I could, let's say, experience racing with her, and also having this one back to back with so many issues that we actually had, it felt amazing.

Nobody gets 10 podiums because of luck, though, as you did in 2023. Do you feel like you raced as well in 2024 or better or worse than 2023?

I think it's tough. I would say that some