Indianapolis 500 Winner Alex Palou Talks About His Winning Move And Not Moving Into Acting Any Time Soon

IndyCar's Alex Palou — driver of the No. 10 Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing — is in the midst of one of, if not the most dominant, seasons the series has ever seen, with his most recent triumph being an Indianapolis 500 win over Memorial Day weekend.

"Still feels surreal, like I still cannot believe that we just won the Indy 500," Palou told me via Zoom just under 48 hours after he crossed the Yard of Bricks to win the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500. "Yeah, the biggest race in the world. And it feels amazing, honestly. It's a dream come true, and I don't think I'll ever be tired of hearing [Indianapolis 500 Champion] as an introduction to an interview."

Palou is just 28 years old, but is already one of the NTT IndyCar Series’ most-decorated drivers with three championship titles, including a two-straight in 2023 and 2024, and after winning five of the first six races this season, he is well on his way to a fourth.

However, until this weekend, he hadn’t won the Indy 500 (or even won on an oval), a requisite to be considered an IndyCar great. Palou said that he didn’t feel a weight come off of his shoulders as other drivers have described, simply because he wasn’t putting too much pressure on himself to get the win.

"It's been more like excitement and pure happiness than anything else," Palou said. "Like, obviously, there's relief whenever you win a race, because that's our work. That's what we want to do. That's what drives us. And when you get it, it's, ‘Oh, yeah, I did it.’ But it was not that. It was not that much, like I did not really put too much pressure on my shoulders to win the 500 now. It's something that I for sure wanted to do throughout my career, but I knew that there's stuff that you cannot control, that it takes time."

Alex Palou celebrates after winning the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500. (Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images)

Making The Winning Pass

Palou sealed the victory with 14 laps to go while battling a tire and fuel deficit compared to those around him. However, when he saw then-race leader and 2022 Indy 500 champ Marcus Ericsson leaving some room to the inside in Turn 1, he pounced on the opportunity.

"So, as soon as I saw that I could get a big run [on] him, out of (Turn) 4 heading into (Turn 1), I was like, ‘Okay, this is my turn, and hopefully we can make it happen,’ Palou explained. Hopefully, he gives us enough space to go on the inside. Otherwise, we'll try and do it from the outside. So, yeah, it was planned. But then during that moment, it's like, a really quick decision of like, okay, the gap is there. I'll just dive in."

The move stuck, and Palou used the lap traffic to help him get to the finish first, which made him the first driver from his native Spain to kiss the Yard of Bricks.

Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou became the first Spanish driver to win the Indy 500. (Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images)

"I mean, being an Indy 500 champion, it's life-changing. It's amazing, but when you add on top of that, that you're the first Spanish driver to do it, there's nobody that's going to change that," he said.

Growing The Sport With Hollywood's Help

Seeing as Palou is quickly becoming the face of the NTT IndyCar Series, he talked about the role media is playing in helping to grow motorsports in general after this year’s Indianapolis 500 was the most-watched since 2008, and a new blockbuster Formula 1 movie is about to hit theaters, potentially exposing new audiences to racing.

"I don't know. I'm sure he will," Palou said when asked if F1 star Brad Pitt would do a serviceable job playing a racing driver." He's an amazing actor, like, come on, he's a superstar, and there’s no better person than him to represent in the motorsport world." 

"I think the good stuff about that, it's not a documentary. It doesn't target people that [are into] motorsport. It targets everybody else. People that are still not interested in motorsport, and hopefully they get some interest in it, and some kids as well, like young people that doesn't know about motorsport, to be like, ‘Hey, this is F1, this is IndyCar.’ Like, it's gonna allow them to discover this amazing world that we have. But yeah, I'm excited for it. I think it's going to be great."

And speaking of the ratings for this year’s Indy 500, which saw an average of over 7 million viewers tuning in to Fox to watch the race — on top of the 350,000 people at the track — Palou expressed hopes that the series' relationship with its broadcast partner will continue to grow the sport.

‘Fox Did An Amazing Job’

"I think Fox did an amazing job on the commercials that they did for us, like you could see that on not only the ratings, but the people, the amount of people we had that every single race weekend," he said.  "And yeah, at the ratings that we had on only their first year, they were awesome. So hopefully that pushes them to be, to continue to be happy, and to push to make it even bigger. Because what they're doing, it's, it's truly amazing."

However, don’t expect Palou, who appeared in those commercials and was great in them, to quit his day job and pursue acting any time soon.

"Yeah, that's not my thing, man, like it was tough for me," Palou said. "That's not my thing. My thing is more, like, to have a helmet and drive than the acting. Even if it looked okay on the commercial, it was actually a tough day for me."

Well, I think we can all agree with the success that Palou has had on track over the last few years — and especially this year, considering he’s off to the best start to a season that IndyCar has ever seen — he’s right at home in the cockpit of a racecar.