Chip Ganassi makes an ominous Alex Palou prediction: "We're just scratching the surface"

Alex Palou joined Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021 in a full-time driver role and has won three championships for the team in the last four years. CGR’s owner Chip Ganassi sat down with the FOX broadcast team as he made an ominous prediction about the three-time IndyCar champion.

Palou started the 2025 IndyCar campaign right where he left off in 2024 by winning the first race at St. Petersburg. The Spaniard currently leads the championship and will start the second race at Thermal Club in P3. Will Buxton and the FOX broadcast team caught up with Chip Ganassi during the warm-up at Thermal Club.

INDYCAR on FOX’s account on social platform X uploaded a clip from the interview where the broadcast crew detailed how Alex Palou took them around the Thermal Club in the Honda Civic Type-R pace car and still had a lot of capacity left inside his head despite pushing. Townsend Bell said:

“Alex Palou took us around in a pace car the other day and I couldn't help but sit in the back seat and watch how much bandwidth he has left even when he's driving us at ten 10s. It was so obvious to me how much more processing ability he has in hand to deal with strategy and everything else. Am I reading that correctly?”

“You're right on it. I mean I think we're just scratching the surface of this guy's talent long-term. I mean he's a three-time champion but he's still new to this and it's really great to have him on the team,” replied Chip Ganassi.

Will Buxton recently uploaded a video on Instagram where he compared IndyCar drivers to their F1 counterparts. The IndyCar play-by-play announcer compared Alex Palou to four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen as he called them unstoppable.

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Alex Palou leads Thermal Club warm-up after disappointing Fast 6 result

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver led the Thermal Club warm-up on Sunday morning a few hours before the race and set the fastest lap time of 01:40.3667. The 27-year-old completed a total of 12 laps in the warm-up.

Alex Palou led the first practice at Thermal Club and was P2 in the second practice session. The Spaniard led his group in the first qualifying session and then topped the second one as well. The CGR driver was 4-5 tenths of the field in the first two qualifying sessions.

However, when it came to the Fast 6, all the drivers had to go out on used alternate tires. The Spaniard dropped pace in the mid 1:40s whereas he was setting mid 1:39s in the first two qualifying sessions. The Arrow McLarens on the other hand did exceptionally well in the Fast 6 and locked out the front row.