The Red Bull Formula 1 team is not trying to sign freshly crowned four-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou, despite reports to the contrary earlier this week.
An article written by the Indy Star - a leader in IndyCar journalism covering the Indianapolis area where most of the teams are based and its biggest race takes place - cited sources indicating the Red Bull squad wanted Palou to slot into its driver line-up. Potentially even straight in at its top team alongside Max Verstappen from next year.
The Race understands this is categorically not the case and that Red Bull is not pursuing the Chip Ganassi Racing driver, with Palou and his team also addressing the rumours in recent days.
“There’s been nothing, nothing at all,” Palou said of contact from F1 teams to The Associated Press earlier this week.
“We have heard nothing from anyone.
“The only thing I’ve heard was it was a manager for some other driver in IndyCar who would like to have my seat, who said it to start something.”
While Palou tried so hard to engineer an F1 move, saying it was the primary motivation for declaring he would leave Ganassi for McLaren in 2023 before being held to his contract by Ganassi, this year his stance has cooled. He’s regularly told the media he’s happy where he is, building something long-term in IndyCar.
Whether a new offer from F1 would tempt him is another question altogether.
In September last year he told The Race: "I'm happy here. I'm not knocking on doors. I know also, I'm 27, I'm not 17, where maybe there could be a chance in the near future. And, yeah, I'm not sad about it."
Is a move even possible?
Chip Ganassi has bent over backwards to facilitate Palou’s wants and dreams, including allowing him to become a reserve driver and to test for McLaren through the 2023 season.
Given a lawsuit was likely and Palou was under contract for 2023 with Ganassi, it seems that Ganassi held the upper hand, but he still allowed Palou these provisions as a form of olive branch to his then one-time champion.
The Race revealed last year Palou had an F1 exit clause in his contract from 2025 - so assuming Palou has not inked a new deal circumventing the terms of the one detailed in the lawsuit - Palou is “entitled to take up an opportunity to drive as a full-time Formula 1 driver” for 2025 onwards.
What is not clear from the court documents is if that clause goes beyond McLaren or is limited to McLaren only, as McLaren is stipulated in the wording.
It’s also been reported that Palou has a large buyout option in his contract for Formula 1 teams.
Speaking to the media earlier this week, Ganassi joked he was relieved when the first question about Red Bull came early so they could get it out of the way.
“I read that myself,” Ganassi said, referring to the original Indy Star story.
“There was nobody quoted in there.
“I talk to Palou. Palou said he's never talked to anybody, doesn't know anything about it. I talked to his management. They know nothing about it. I know nothing about it.
“I think it's a clickbait story. Somebody needs to brush up on their investigative journalism.”
Asked if he didn’t want to lose Palou, Ganassi added: “Of course I don't want to lose him. Who wants to lose somebody good? Where you going with that?
The person asking the question asked Ganassi to reflect on that.
“He had an opportunity to leave and he decided to stay,” Ganassi added.
“I don't know how many times I have to say that. Everybody can see that, I think, yeah.”
Why it doesn't make sense for Red Bull
Red Bull has just brought in a team boss Laurent Mekies, who has a great relationship with its under-fire driver Yuki Tsunoda. Red Bull hasn't been able to give him the same specification of car for much of his season, after throwing him in after no testing and with two races already complete, and it appears to have realised how that might negatively affect him now.
He said on Thursday that he has a period to impress Red Bull further in order to keep his seat, and it's clear no decision has been made about that, which would definitively open a door for Palou.
Red Bull also has a rejuvenated Liam Lawson at Racing Bulls alongside a rookie in Isack Hadjar, it seemingly didn't want to promote, had no choice to, and then he's been pretty mega and looks like a future Red Bull Racing driver. Arvid Lindblad has a super licence already and F2 race winner looks very likely to get a shot at an F1 seat soon.
Couple that with Red Bull's experiments with 'older' drivers like bringing back Daniel Ricciardo or signing Nyck de Vries, and this move didn't make sense from the beginning.
Not to mention, would Red Bull as a company allow the F1 team to move for a driver who is being sued by its biggest rival McLaren, the outcome of which appears headed for a trial?
Maybe, but that's a bit messy, and so has Palou's contract situation been for years now.
While Palou's been amazing in IndyCar this year, there are more straightforward and obvious choices for Red Bull.
As much as IndyCar drivers should be respected and not overlooked as they sometimes are in the F1 paddock, just because a driver is doing well in IndyCar doesn't mean the mandated next step should be F1 either, or the F1 teams should be scalded for not doing something which hasn't been done in years and is often far more complicated than people would hope.
What’s been said in the F1 paddock
A number of drivers in F1 messaged Palou either directly or on social media to congratulate him on wrapping up his fourth IndyCar title and becoming only the third driver to win three titles and an Indy 500.
Predictably, because of the notoriety of this news surrounding Palou and Red Bull, some drivers were asked or commented on Palou, his performances and his suitability for an F1 switch.
Fernando Alonso joked that his email was open to Palou if he wanted advice, adding: “He has the talent and he has the level to adapt very quickly and ultimately it will depend on which car you have.
“If you are at the back of the grid, it seems that you are not adapting to the category and you're struggling with certain things and you make more mistakes because you try to overcome those and overdrive sometimes; and if you're in a fast car, everything is a little bit easier.
“He’s Formula 1-level and if he has the chance, I will be very happy for him.”
Fellow countryman Carlos Sainz mirrored Alonso’s take, adding that F1 would be a “different monster” making it “impossible to predict” how good he would be.
“He must be doing things really, really well to dominate the way he's dominating in such a competitive category,” he added on his IndyCar performances.
Max Verstappen said it was ‘a bit of a waste of time” to “debate” how well Palou would do in F1 or how well F1 drivers would do in IndyCar, but twice praised Palou’s IndyCar dominance, calling it “incredible” and saying he’s “happy to see the way he’s been dominating”.
Is Palou well-suited to F1?
Despite the interest that has circled Colton Herta over the years, Alex Palou has long since been the most F1-ready talent in IndyCar.
He showed that in his FP1 outing in COTA from 2022 in my opinion, when he was within three tenths of Lando Norris on comparable tyres. You don’t know the run plans etc, but that’s still impressive.
He has a number of key skills which would apply to F1 and well and that have been somewhat amplified in IndyCar in the last 12 months.
The addition of a new hybrid unit has made the cars heavier, putting a premium on tyre management, which is one area where Palou’s six-time champion Scott Dixon feels he’s getting the better of him.
His analytical skills are immense. He’s able to brainstorm and problem solve car set-up for certain corners without losing sight of the bigger picture of how the car performs for the rest of the lap.
His driving style is really smooth even in a series that has suited and even benefitted really aggressive drives in recent years. Palou has proven a more neutral style still works and can access the peak performance of the car without ragging it around a lap.
It's also clear that Palou has an absolutely astounding ability to follow a race from the cockpit, understanding even IndyCar's most complicated races from the cockpit. He absorbs information like a sponge but the really impressive part is how much free headspace he has in the car to think, analyse and adapt.
If his brain was a computer, even in IndyCar's toughest races, he's only using 60% of the processing power ensuring he has spare space to take in, understand and react to other variables better than a driver constantly using 90% of their brain.
Obviously, these numbers are not tangible and just meant to illustrate the point.
All of these skills make him an ideal F1 candidate.
But, he’s had very little time in an F1 car, would be going into the series under extremely high pressure as the first driver in decades to go properly from IndyCar champion to F1, and things change so quickly in F1 that making big decisions is tough.
Look at Sauber. You’d have forgiven Palou for turning down a Sauber seat at the start of the year if one was on offer, and yet in just a few weeks, both its drivers have well outscored the top Red Bull second seat Palou has been linked with!
Predicting the order in 2026 is even more difficult.
Most of the drivers go to F1 from F2 and they are desperate. Palou is not. He’s well compensated, respected and at the top of his game and his sport. He has a genuine opportunity to become the best IndyCar driver of all time.
He’s finished on the podium in over 50% of his races with Chip Ganassi. His average finish on road courses this year is 1.43. He has won half the races this year, and been on pole for six. He is ridiculous.
That record would be tough to walk away from, even if there was an F1 seat waiting for him.
