“If everything was 100%, he’d have won”: Chip Ganassi says Alex Palou would have come short against his teammate if not for radio troubles

Alex Palou came out as the winner of the much-anticipated 2025 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. He made all the right decisions during the 100-lap race, but as per his team, Chip Ganassi Racing, teammate Scott Dixon would have won the race had they not faced radio issues.

Dixon was ahead of Alex Palou for the majority of the race. However, with 30 laps remaining in the race, Palou came into the pits a lap earlier than Dixon, and this undercut did the trick for him.

The Chip Ganassi outfit wanted to bring Dixon first into the pits, but a radio issue did not allow them. In line with this, the outfit had the following to add in the post-race press conference:

"If everything was 100%, he (Dixon) would have won, it was simple. He would have won the race. The race was over. It was one stop to go, and we pitted a lap later than we wanted him to. That was the race. That was the difference between he and Palou." [via The Race]

The six-time world champion Dixon missed out on the race win against Palou by an extremely small margin.

Scott Dixon's stance on his St. Petersburg race against Alex Palou

While the Chip Ganassi Racing team asserted that Scott Dixon could have won the St. Petersburg race in place of Alex Palou, the 44-year-old, on his end, felt that the radio issue cost him dearly in the 100-lap race.

In light of this and his fight against Paou, the Kiwi had the following to add:

"You have a fuel light, you know when the car is going to run out. I didn't know if they could hear me, so I was just telling them I'm just going to run to the light and see what happens. Ultimately, I think for me, it was just one lap too long. I should have pitted maybe when I saw the 10 car coming in," Dixon was quoted as saying by The Race.

The 2025 IndyCar season still has 16 Grand Prix events remaining. Palou is eyeing his fourth world championship in the highest class of open-wheel racing in America, whereas Dixon is gunning for his seventh title.

The fight for the drivers' title could turn out to be a two-way brawl between the Chip Ganassi racing drivers. A point may come during the campaign where the Indianapolis, Indiana-based team may have to prefer one driver, if this happens to be the case, things will get heated within the team's setup. Palou has come into this year's campaign as the defending world champion. He won his titles in 2021, 2023 and 2024.