PORTLAND, Ore. — Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing put an exclamation point on the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series championship by winning Sunday’s Bitnile.com Grand Prix of Portland.
He secured his second IndyCar Series championship by leading 69 laps in the 110-lap race at Portland International Raceway and defeating Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist by 5.4353. Palou was in the No. 10 American Legion Honda and Rosenqvist in the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s six-time IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon finished third and was the final driver eliminated from the championship with one race remaining. He is assured of finishing second in the championship, giving Chip Ganassi Racing it’s third 1-2 sweep in the standings.
The others were Alex Zanardi over Jimmy Vasser in 1998 and Dario Franchitti over Dixon in 2009.
Palou takes a 91-point lead into the final race of the season at WeatherTech Raceway in Laguna Seca, but with a maximum of 54 points in each IndyCar race, nobody can catch the 2021 IndyCar Series champion, who is now a two-time IndyCar Series champ.
Palou is the first driver to clinch the championship before the final race of the season since Sebastien Bourdais won the Champ Car Series title in 2007 and Dan Wheldon won the IndyCar title in 2005.
Bourdais clinched the title in the Lexmark 300 at Surfer’s Paradise, Australia on October 21, 2007, with one race left in the season. Wheldon cliched the 2005 IndyCar championship by completing a single practice lap at the next to last race of the season at Watkins Glen International. He would go on to finish fifth in the race, sixth in the season finale at California Speedway and won a series high six races that season.
The last driver to clinch at IndyCar championship before the final race of the season in a combined series was Al Unser, Jr. in the 1994 CART season. Unser won eight of the 16 races that season and Team Penske won 12 of the 16 races on the schedule. Unser clinched it with two to go at Road America.
It’s Chip Ganassi Racing’s 15th IndyCar title, and 22nd all-time as organization.
The team has won three of the past four IndyCar championships and has won 10 championships since series reunification in 2008 (10 of 16 seasons). It is also the first championship Chip Ganassi Racing has achieved with The American Legion and Parkland Corporation.
Palou is the first driver to clinch the championship before the season finale since Sebastien Bourdais in 2007. He is also the fifth driver in IndyCar history to win multiple championships at 26-or-younger (Sebastien Bourdais; A.J. Foyt; Sam Hornish Jr.; Louis Meyer) (Won title in first season with CGR in 2021).
He is the fourth driver to win multiple championships with Chip Ganassi Racing joining Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti and Alex Zanardi.
It’s Ricky Davis’ fifth season as crew chief on championship-winning car.
In 2023, Chip Ganassi Racing had three cars in the top 10 in every single race this season.
Add that all up and it’s obvious why Palou was the best in the series in 2023.
“He is certainly special,” team owner Chip Ganassi said afterward. “We noticed that his first weekend, his first race win at Barber. We knew the guy was special. He’s part of our team. We couldn’t be happier about that.
“He told me (before the race) I’m going to wrap it up with a win. I said OK, great. He called his shot today.”
Ganassi also confirmed that Palou will be back on the team beginning in 2024.
“Alex Palou is going to be in our car, I can tell you that,” Ganassi said. “Sure.”
Palou was asked about the team owner’s confirmation and said he is ready to defend the championship with the team.
“It’s not going to be easy, honestly,” Palou said. “There is a lot of work behind. It’s really tough. We struggled last year after winning the title in 2021. Just because we won this year doesn’t mean we will continue that form.
“We will have to work very hard to defend this championship with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2024.”
The 2024 season for Palou can actually begin at Laguna Seca with a test day on Wednesday, September 13.
“We have a test day, and we will start preparing our 2024 season testing with some crazy stuff that we have in mind and get the most of it,” Palou said. “It will be very beneficial to get ahead of the work in store for us.”
Palou also announced that his wife Esther is expecting the couple’s first child in November, so there is much for the popular driver from Spain to celebrate.
“It’s coming really quick,” Palou said. “I’ll try to catch up on sleep before that, I’ll do my best.”
By winning Sunday’s race, Palou has the most victories of any driver in 2023 with five wins. He was tied with Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden with four.
“That’s amazing,” Palou said. “It’s super hard. It’s hard to get wins in IndyCar. I just cannot believe we got five this year. It’s amazing. I know we have been really consistent throughout the year, but I didn’t want to win the championship in 2021 only through consistency. I wanted to show we were capable of winning races – not only one or two, but five.
“That’s a phenomenal number.”
Another phenomenal number is Palou has finished every race this season in the top eight. He hasn’t had a bad race in 2023.
“It has been an amazing year and I hope we can continue the form next year,” Palou said.
As for the race, there were nine lead changes among five drivers. Palou led the most laps with 69. Pole winner Graham Rahal was one of only two drivers with double digits when he was in front for 21 laps. Third-place finisher Scott Dixon led 15 laps.
Palou finished 5.4353 seconds ahead of Rosenqvist. Dixon’s No. 9 PNC Bank Honda was third followed by Pato O’Ward’s No. 5 Chevrolet and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden’s No. 2 Chevrolet.
There were two cautions for six laps. One key moment came when rookie Augustin Canapino spun in Turn 11 on Lap 85. IndyCar Race Control did not throw the yellow flag until Rosenqvist, the leader at that time, made his final pit stop.
That infuriated Dixon.
“The 78 (Augustin Canapino) spun off of probably the most dangerous part of the track in turn 11, and then they just let him sit there until the leaders pit,” Dixon explained. “The issue there is that as soon as the leaders pit, they make it to pit lane, they go caution, so the leaders don’t have to eat the out-lap, which can be several seconds.
“It’s just they feel like they’re probably helping people, but they’re making it worse in a lot of scenarios, but I’m happy that it helped Felix. He is a good friend and a guy I like a lot. If it was somebody else, I would have been a little more pissed off.”
Palou started fifth, had an aggressive start to get past Dixon going into Turn 1 on the opening lap and was ultimately able to completely control the 110-lap race.
The best way to win a championship is to win the race.
“I thought we had a really, really fast car,” Palou said. “I would say ‘Fast Six,’ the result we got there wasn’t what we could have achieved. I didn’t think we extracted 100 percent from it, so I knew after warmup that we could go for it and win the race.
“So, we didn’t really go on safe mode of just staying with the 9 (Dixon) because we thought we could win the race today, and we did. So happy that everything worked out.”
It was the second stint on Red tires that played a role in helping gain control of the race. Palou was able to manage the tire wear.
“We knew we wanted to do at least 18 laps, and it was right about the time that the 9 and the 6 (Rosenqvist) caught us where we didn’t want to lose the lead,” Palou explained. “We could have been a little more aggressive and just be, like, from P-3 from three laps after to just have a bit more space, but we didn’t. We just wanted to be a bit conservative on that call. I think it was the right call, but we had traffic at the same time.
“So, yeah, it was, I would say, the stint that I suffered the most on Reds.”
Palou told Ganassi he was going to go out and win the race. That’s exactly what he did.
“Honestly I knew we had a really, really fast car, especially after warmup,” Palou explained. “I knew throughout all weekend, but especially after warmup I felt really, really good.
“Then Chip, before the race we did a meeting, and he was very aggressive on telling us that we had to win. So I was, like, all right, let’s win then.
“So before jumping into the car he was with me. He said, ‘All right, let’s have a good and a clean race, just manage your position.’
“I was, like, ‘No, Chip, you told us to win, so I’ll go ahead, and I think we can win it.’
“It was honestly one of those races where I knew we had everything we needed to win the race, that we had something else that could separate us from our competitors. It was true, and we were able to maximize it.”