IndyCar: 'Lame Duck' Palou having a lot to quack about in last season with Chip Ganassi

Palou, who is headed for Team McLaren in either IndyCar or F1 in 2024, wins again Sunday in Detroit and extends his points lead, as well

The phrase “lame duck” has no place in the vocabulary of Alex Palou.

DItto for the word "Incapaz" (the Spanish word for lame duck) for the bilingual Palou.

The 26-year-old Spaniard may be in his last season with Chip Ganassi Racing before moving on to McLaren in 2024 (whether that be in IndyCar or Formula One is yet to be known), but Palou has not shown any sign of distraction so far this season.

Finishing no worse than eighth in the first seven races contested so far this year, Palou has been the man to beat. He already has wins in the Indy GP last month and at Detroit Sunday - not to mention the pole position and a good showing (fourth) in last week’s Indy 500.

Alex Palou and his team stop to take a selfie after winning Sunday's Detroit Grand Prix. Photo courtesy Honda Racing

Palou now leaves the Motor City with a 51-point lead over second-place Marcus Ericsson and 70 points over this year's Indy 500 winner, Josef Newgarden.

“We got the win at GMR (Grand Prix of Indianapolis), got the pole at Indy, got the pole here, and the win here,” Paloi said. “Obviously we're in a roll.

“We'll try and keep the wave rolling if we can because it's a great moment for us. We know this is not going to get until the end of the season. We'll try to get advantage of that. The next couple of races are really good for us. We'll try and, as I said, keep it going.”

Palou’s current lead in the standings is the biggest he’s ever had in his career. He’ll have a chance to add to it in two weeks when IndyCar roars into Road America. While happy, Palou is well aware that there’s still plenty of racing ahead of him this summer -- 10 more races, to be precise.

“Honestly, there's a lot of races to go,” Palou said. “We got the lead two races ago. Now, suddenly, we have this amazing lead.

“On the same way that we go up, there's somebody that can go up as well, and we can go down. That's IndyCar. That's the high competition that we have here. There's a lot. I think in 15 weeks we can have 10 race weekends. It's going to be tough to keep the energy up for everybody. But having that lead, it's going to help us. Hopefully, we can keep it going and getting bigger.”

Should Palou win the title this year, it would be the third for Team Ganassi in five years. Team owner Chip Ganassi has expressed interest in having Palou continue to race for the team past 2023, and Palou said great weekends like Detriot make the offer tempting.

However, after being involved in the middle of a contract dispute between Ganassi and Arrow McLaren SP last year -- and all reports indicate Palou has a signed, sealed and delivered deal with McLaren for next year and beyond -- it's unlikely Ganassi can somehow put a wedge in that deal and keep Palou, especially if the Spaniard indeed wins another championship this year.

“Yeah, with the experience that obviously I had put myself into last year, I'm not going to comment anything before I announce directly,” Palou said. “I learned that from last year.

“Obviously yeah, I mean, as I said, we had great race cars every weekend. We had chances to win every weekend. Yeah, we'll keep it going.”