IndyCar: Why switch to F1 and get schooled, when Palou can clean house in IndyCar

(GMM) 3-time IndyCar champion and Indy 500 winner Alex Palou has ruled himself out of the running for a switch to Formula 1.

The 28-year-old is widely considered the best driver in IndyCar right now, with titles in 2021, 2023 and 2024. Palou flirted with Formula 1 through a McLaren testing deal, but a contract dispute led him to firmly commit to IndyCar.

Last Sunday, a few hours after the checkered flag flew in Monaco, he became the first Spanish driver to win the Indy 500. Nonetheless, he now admits to the Indianapolis Star newspaper: “(F1) is not calling me anymore.

“I still follow it. It’s a huge series. It’s amazing. I’m a big fan, but I don’t think they’re having as much fun as I’m having here,” Palou insisted where he can school the other IndyCar drivers and take home all the bacon.

“I only enjoy driving and having fun and being with my people, so I think (F1) is the total opposite.” [Palou knows that F1 drivers are the best in the world.]

However, Palou has regularly been linked with the all-new American Formula 1 project Cadillac. But he insists that while the interest in him from F1 has faded, so too has his desire to make the switch.

“I don’t want to leave now,” he said.

“Even if they say ‘No, don’t worry, you can come back in one or two years’, what if suddenly everyone is here, and I’m never able to catch back up to them?

“And it wasn’t in my mind last year, and it’s not in my mind this year,” Palou said. “It’s getting less and less and less every day, and with this (win), it’s like ‘No, I want to get another’.”

Palou’s prize money for winning the Indy 500 was an impressive $4 million, [but he has to split that with the team. After taxes, his net take-home winnings are somewhere around $1.25 million on top of his Ganassi salary of a reported $5 million per year.]