Burley Garcia|'Rarefied air': Ganassi's Alex Palou wins third IndyCar title in four years

LEBANON,Burley Garcia Tennessee – Alex Palou had an easy path to his second consecutive championship but also a clear-eyed view of how tough it’ll be to stay on top of the IndyCar Series.

The Chip Ganassi Racing star finished a pedestrian 11^th in the Music City Grand Prix, but the closing laps at Nashville Superspeedway still were no easy Sunday drive. As he cruised to his third title in four years, Palou found his No. 10 Dallara-Honda a lap down and unwittingly mired in the middle of a frenzied battle for the victory between Colton Herta and Pato O’Ward.

“It wasn't great to be there in the mix without being able to do much,” Palou said.

It also was a niggling reminder that even though he’s been the series’ best driver for three of the past four seasons, the waves of contenders seem never-ending despite his dominance.

“I'm not ruling anybody out, man,” he said. “It was (Will) Power heading into this weekend. Now we talk about Colton and (Scott) McLaughlin, Pato. I mean, it's everybody. I think that's the beauty of this series. You cannot count somebody down.

“Yeah, it will be an exciting next year.”

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The only weakness on Palou’s resume might the lack of an oval victory – a void that Herta filled Sunday with a daring pass of O’Ward.

 The first career oval win boosted the Andretti Global star to a career-best second in points, making Herta a prime threat to break the Ganassi/Team Penske championship stranglehold (one of those teams has won the title in 12 consecutive seasons).

“We’ve got a lot to do to catch up to those guys, though,” Herta, 24, said after his second victory this season and ninth of his career. “I think there's been multiple times where I thought we could have won or should have won (on an oval), and numerous things would have happened to stop us from doing that. Luckily, today we got it all right.”

Herta posted career bests in podiums (six) and average finish (7.4) in ‘24, and he also spent the majority of the season ranked top five in points.

“There's a whole bunch of things we could have done to win the championship this year,” Herta said. “I think we'll reflect on that going into the offseason. It does hurt a little bit when you think about winning the last race, and (Palou) didn't have a particularly strong one, so we could have made up a lot of points today if we needed to in that championship fight. That's something that we'll look into in the off-season, how to shallow out the lows and make them a little bit better.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by O’Ward, who also will be high on the list of challengers to Palou’s supremacy in 2025. The Arrow McLaren driver tied for the series lead with three victories, but he was bit by the three races that he failed to finish (two for mechanical problems).

“We've got some work to do to catch up to (Palou) with Ganassi,” O’Ward said. “I think they've really set the bar where they've been leaders in terms of consistency. As a team, we have a lot of work to do to be in the conversation, to be fairly honest.

“We're going to work for that and try and just truly be there to fight until the end because I think this year we fell a little bit short like we have the last couple years. I'd love to see that take a different place next year and really give them that fight.”

O’Ward, 25, knows he needs to raise his game because he will be facing a Hall of Fame-level rival for likely the rest of his IndyCar career.

At 27, Palou became the second-youngest three-time champion (just a few months behind Sam Hornish Jr.) in series history.

The first Spanish champion in IndyCar also is the first back-to-back champion since Dario Franchitti in 2009-11.

And Palou became the 12^th driver with at least three IndyCar championships, joining an illustrious list that also includes legends such as A.J. Foyt (seven titles), Scott Dixon (six), Dario Franchitti (four), Mario Andretti (three), Rick Mears (three) and Bobby Rahal (three)

“He's in pretty rarefied air right now,” said Chip Ganassi., whose team has employed Palou Dixon and Franchitti “His name has to be among and certainly in the conversation of the great drivers. He's certainly in the conversation of the greatest.”

Palou now has more championships than Team Penske stars Josef Newgarden and Will Power, whose longshot bid of beating Palou for the title ended on Lap 13 of 206 when his lap belt came undone. He lost five laps while a team member fixed the problem under green.

“I’m like, ‘Man, that was weird,’” said Power, who finished 24^th and fell to fourth in the points standings. “That’s a very abnormal thing. I just don’t know what went wrong. We’ll have to send it back to the manufacturer. Very strange failure. Disappointing but big congrats to Alex. Tough guy to beat.”