Too Good for IndyCar, Too Late for F1? Assessing Alex Palou’s chances of a switch to Formula 1

The NTT IndyCar Series has not produced a driver that has made the switch to Formula 1 since Sébastien Bourdais back in 2008.  With Alex Palou’s domination of IndyCar not coming to an end anytime soon, what chance does the 28-year-old have of convincing an F1 team to give him a shot, or does Colton Herta have the momentum?

With a fourth NTT IndyCar Series championship after just six years in the series looking increasingly likely after a scintillating start to 2025, Alex Palou is head and shoulders above the rest of the grid in terms of warranting a chance in Formula 1. After all these years, Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) has finally found the natural successor to Scott Dixon and will happily keep him onboard Stateside for as long as possible but will not stand his way if F1 comes calling.

Of course, it was not so long ago that Palou had a contract with a team in Formula 1. The then one-time champion was signed to Arrow McLaren in IndyCar with the parallel program of F1 testing and reserve duties when possible for 2023 having been at CGR since his triumphant sophomore season in 2021.

However, CGR stepped in to say that Palou had a valid contract with the team for 2023. After a court battle, the compromise was reached that he could perform his F1 duties with McLaren after the IndyCar season was complete while continuing to see out his contract with CGR through 2023 and join Arrow McLaren in 2024.

Palou then went on to reclaim the IndyCar championship he lost to Will Power in 2022 during a successful campaign with CGR in 2023. At the same time, new McLaren F1 signing Oscar Piastri immediately impressed and Palou realised that his chances of a full-time race seat in the World Championship were practically impossible.

2023 was a difficult year for Arrow McLaren in IndyCar while Palou swept to the title with CGR so he decided to go back on his deal with the former and recommit with the latter. The legal battle for multi-million dollar losses that McLaren believe they incurred on testing with Palou still goes on to this day and it may well leave a bitter taste in any Formula 1 team’s mouth if they ever seriously consider hiring the Spaniard.

There was nothing else Palou could have hoped for from McLaren. The chance of a much better wage, exposure to and immersion within the F1 operation, as well as official and private testing opportunities were about as much as anyone could wish for from a Formula 1 team without being a full-time driver.

Yet Palou threw this all away, perhaps also because McLaren would not let him approach any other F1 team while under contract with them. However, they did just let their highly-rated junior driver Gabriel Bortoleto join Sauber for this year…

Too Old for Formula 1?

No F1 team has shown interest in Palou since, nor has he himself tried particularly hard to seek another opportunity elsewhere. His imperious form over the last two-and-a-half years might help to force his way back into the sights of F1 teams, but until this happens it seems Palou is too content to stay where he is.

There is little more Palou has to prove in IndyCar apart from winning the Indianapolis 500 (or indeed any oval race). Yet whenever he is asked about a move to F1 – like last summer when there was an opening at Sauber – he brushes the notion aside completely; rather than boast about his success he does the exact opposite…

And what also works against Palou is that although he is America’s finest open-wheel racer at present… he is not American. F1 desperately needs an American driver to expand interest Stateside, especially with three Grands Prix and two teams being on the grid next year; but would there be the same amount of political pressure to attract Palou to F1 as Colton Herta, for example?

Palou’s best shot might not be the incoming Cadillac outfit but rather the very team that took a chance on Bourdais. Red Bull are not shy with hiring drivers from other series (see Bourdais from Champ Car, Brendon Hartley from the WEC and Nyck de Vries from Formula E) but this only happens when there is a dearth of options within its own ranks.

Of course, the three drivers that Red Bull has hired from outside the traditional F1 support series have all faltered at their junior team. The most relevant example is Bourdais who joined what was then called Toro Rosso in 2008 after claiming four consecutive Champ Car (one half of pre-unification IndyCar) titles in 2004-2007 and was a similar age to what Palou now is when he made the switch, but lasted just 27 Grands Prix.

Arvid Lindblad is next in line for a Racing Bulls seat so Palou or anyone else would be second on the list at best. The advantage Red Bull have is that if they hired Palou and he did not perform, he would almost certainly be racing for their junior team and not the senior one, though on the other hand the Austrian-Thai marque has notoriously little patience with underperforming drivers, just ask Patricio O’Ward…

Since Racing Bulls are set on Lindblad, there is no other F1 team with a clear vacancy for next year apart from Cadillac at this stage. The General Motors-backed team has been signalling for years now that they would like to bring an American into F1 and given that one of their driver berths will go to someone with prior experience in the World Championship, this will complicate Palou’s chances if their intentions of promoting homegrown talent are true.

Herta over Palou – because he’s not American?

The influence of Andretti Global has faded within the Cadillac F1 entry, so there may not be quite as much pressure to promote Herta (who of course drives for them in IndyCar) as there once was. Given the scale of the regulation changes coming to Formula 1 next year, Cadillac might be unwise to promote a rookie unless they take the view that they will not be chasing results anyway in its first year or two and could afford to offset the potential risk of an inexperienced F1 driver with the marketing benefit of them being an American.

Perhaps unfairly, Herta would get Cadillac’s sponsors, the American public, and Formula 1 itself more excited than Palou despite the latter having far superior results. And with F1 drivers getting progressively younger, even Herta is older than all the rookies who joined the sport in 2025 and for Palou there may be some of the opinion that he is simply too old or taken too long to reach his full potential.

Whereas it would be a good story for IndyCar to finally produce talent good enough for F1 after almost two decades, it would be a better one if it were an American – and a younger one at that. Trivial though it may seem, age and nationality are firmly against Palou despite his continuing success and he has already had his chance to get involved with what is now Formula 1’s leading outfit. 

Sticking with McLaren in a reserve capacity would at least have kept Palou around the F1 paddock and have his pedigree known to those within it, but throwing that away may well have been terminal for his hopes of racing in the World Championship. No matter the miracles he can perform on track, it will take something truly special for Palou to inspire anyone in Formula 1 to take a chance on him even when at the peak of his potential.

written by Sol Ahmed / Media Credit: Penske Entertainment