“You get more into fights than us”: When Alex Palou discussed the cultural differences in IndyCar and NASCAR with Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. 

In 2021, 3X IndyCar champion Alex Palou was featured on Dale Earnhardt Jr's Dirty Mo Media YouTube channel to discuss the different cultures in NASCAR and Indycar. Palou won his first championship in 2021 with the season ending in September.

Earnhardt Jr. is one of the famous drivers of his generation and the son of seven-time NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt. Jr. retired from the Cup series in 2017 and is a co-owner of the JR Motorsports team.

Alex Palou began his professional racing career in Europe in the junior Formula categories and made the IndyCar move in 2020. The Spaniard currently races for Chip Ganassi Racing.

In a DirtyMoMedia podcast episode uploaded on October 15, 2021, Earnhardt Jr and Palou discussed the cultural differences between IndyCar and NASCAR. The two offered their opinions on how brawls are sorted in both the Motorsport series, with Dale Earnhardt Jr saying,

“We'll push each other, you know, physically and verbally, but I don't know that I would…” (14:52 onwards)

Alex Palou cut short the Hall of Famer’s sentence as he added,

“You get more into fights than us”

Earnhardt Jr continued,

“Well, I think I wouldn't have that same confidence to do that in a series of so many different cultures because you don't know just how far your guy's willing to take something”

The Spaniard then gave his opinion on the same and said,

“Yeah, you never know who you're fighting with. But I don't know, I think NASCAR is more like, somebody can punch you in the face in NASCAR, not in IndyCar. I know nobody's gonna punch me because otherwise they're not gonna do the next race or something. I'm sure something bad's gonna happen. But in NASCAR, I don't know.”

Alex Palou moved from DCR to Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021 and won the championship in his first year with the team. Since then, he's won two more championships with CGR in 2023 and 2024. Palou did sign a deal with McLaren to have a chance at the F1 seat, however, didn't fulfill the agreement and stayed with Chip Ganassi.

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Alex Palou opened up on his efforts to get an F1 seat

Alex Palou was supposed to join McLaren's IndyCar team and become the F1 reserve driver for them in 2023. However, as per the CGR contract, the Spaniard was forced to stay with the team.

A settlement that was agreed upon suggested that Palou would join McLaren for the 2024 season. After winning the championship in 2023, he decided to stay with the team and didn't honor the McLaren contract, which led to a lawsuit.

AUTO: JUN 23 NTT IndyCar Series Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey - Source: Getty

Speaking about how he learned from the attempts to sign with McLaren in the hope of an F1 seat, Alex Palou said, (via The Race)

“It's not a secret that I did a lot of stuff to try to get into F1 in the past that didn't help in my career in IndyCar, and that created a lot of drama around my name and my team. I tried that. It didn't work, learned a lot from that on track and off track. So I'm actually happy of what happened, of what I learned, what I was able to get from that as a driver and as a person.”

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were given long-term contracts by McLaren after the 2023 F1 season leaving little to no scope for Palou to get a promotion to the F1 seat in the foreseeable future.