The chances getting in the 2024 IndyCar season were never ever beneficial for Alex Palou. For beginners, the attrition of what is perhaps the most competitive racing classification on the planet indicated no chauffeur had actually won the champion two times in succession in over a years.
If that weren't enough, 6 of the last 8 rounds all happened on ovals– a track discipline that had yet to yield a journey to Victory Lane for him. And after that, too, was the unknown of the extraordinary mid-season launching of IndyCar's hybrid engine.
No matter, the Spaniard was his normal imperturbable self. The efficiency wasn't rather on par with his stout 2023 title run of 5 wins and a surface no lower than 8th, the accuracy Palou continued to show on a weekly basis with Chip Ganassi Racing was nearly surgical. He stormed to 3 wins– consisting of the $1 Million Challenge, a non-points round at The Thermal Club– plus 4 extra podiums and 3 poles en path to raising the Astor Cup Trophy for the 2nd successive season, and 3rd time over the previous 4 years.
The periodic beatdown Palou has actually been understood for never ever genuinely came this previous project. The very first of his 2 points-paying triumphes came at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's roadway course design, where he recuperated from a bad start from pole with spectacular in-lap and out-lap technique to rise into the lead on the penultimate round of pitstops before progressing to a 6.6106-second triumph.
He took his other points-paying win of the year at Laguna Seca, where he led early however was delegated manage a marvelous pass in the Corkscrew on Colton Herta– similar to a comparable relocation Alex Zanardi placed on Herta's dad, Bryan, almost 30 years earlier. It wasn't all as simple, however, because Palou was required to ward off competitors on a late reboot in the disorderly, caution-filled affair before crossing the goal 1.9780 s ahead of Herta.
Palou's difficult level of consistency took a hit, his streak of 23 successive leading 10 surfaces in points-paying races pertaining to an end with an average 16th on the streets of Detroit in early June. That imperfection was followed by 3 more average outcomes outside the leading 10.
Hand down Herta for success at Laguna Seca was the 2nd and last of Palou's year, however he once again showed more constant than the rest
Picture by: Phillip Abbott/ Motorsport Images
These consisted of an uncharacteristically self-inflicted error that resulted in Palou crashing his Honda-powered Dallara out of the opening race of the double-header weekend at Iowa Speedway. Per typical, however, he was unfazed and rebounded to fight the woeful getaways with 13 leading fives through the 17 points-paying rounds, matching his mark from a year back.
There were, naturally, minutes of stress and anxiety near the closing phases. In the penultimate race of the year,
