Whether he looks for it or not, Alex Palou is looking more and more like a Formula 1 player.

A few months ago, in an interview, Álex Palou stated that the Formula 1 train had already passed for him. The argument made perfect sense. Why pursue an unsecured future in the world of motorsports when things are going so well for him professionally in the United States? He's winning races nonstop, he has the American fans in his pocket, he's doing well financially, and he even has the freedom to make cameos in other competitions. But perhaps it's Formula 1 that can't afford to do without Álex .

That Álex Palou is the dominant force in the current era of the IndyCar championship is a no-brainer. Since his debut, he has won every championship he has entered except two. In fact, he would have also won the 2023 championship had he not had the legal dispute he became embroiled in with McLaren. But 2025 is a turning point on everything that came before. The Catalan seems to be playing a different sport than his competitors. His superiority and dominance are overwhelming.

The numbers speak for themselves. Three race wins out of a possible four this season, his fourteenth victory in the championship, and a statistic that eloquently illustrates his superiority over his rivals: the Girona native reached his thousandth lap while leading a race at Barber, a milestone achieved in his 80th championship appearance. To put it in perspective, this feat was achieved fourteen races before Scott Dixon, who with six titles to his name is one of the all-time greats in the sport.

You have to go back many years to find a driver who dominated the championship with such insolence. The curious thing is that the only similarities found in history are two drivers who, like Alex, drove for Chip Ganassi Racing and were powered by Honda engines: Alex Zanardi and Juan Pablo Montoya . Both the former and the latter ended up in Formula 1 because it was considered a waste that such talents were not enjoyed outside of North America.

It's clear that Chip Ganassi has a nose for talent. His team has always been one of the best, along with Andretti and Penske, but it's always been his drivers who have put the icing on the cake. Zanardi and Montoya left IndyCar and went to Formula 1, signing with Williams. The former failed, while the latter succeeded. Zanardi's poor performance revived the prejudices that existed since the Michael Andretti years about the championship's poor performance, but Montoya's successes proved otherwise.

Alex Zanardi arrived at Williams during a very difficult period, encountering a tire regulation change that stifled him from the start. The Italian probably also underestimated the challenge and, confident in his American successes, perhaps didn't put in the workload he should have. Juan Pablo Montoya's early days in Formula 1 weren't easy either, as he found himself vastly outperformed by Ralf Schumacher, the same driver who had previously crushed Zanardi.

But once Juan Pablo Montoya got the hang of Formula 1's tires and response times, he became, for a time, the only driver who could occasionally challenge Michael Schumacher. In those years, the German dominated the sport with the same iron fist that Alex Palou currently does in the IndyCar championship. Overall, it's obvious that the Formula 1 grid has more talent than the IndyCar grid, but that doesn't mean Palou's rivals should be underestimated.

Calum Illot, Scott McLaughlin, Pato O'Ward, Felix Rosenqvist, Robert Schwartzmann, and a few other drivers haven't made it to Formula 1 yet, but in the lower categories, they competed head-to-head with the new crop of talent such as Oscar Piastri, Ollie Bearman, and Franco Colapinto. You only have to look at how a former Formula 1 driver like Marcus Ericsson always wanders around the back of the grid to realize that, on the other side of the Atlantic, Álex Palou also has some very high-caliber rivals.

That's why the superiority shown by Álex Palou last Sunday on the Alabama circuit can be misleading. Scott McLaughlin, who completed the podium behind Christian Lundgaard, put it simply: "When you see someone like Álex at his best, the only thing the rest of us can do is watch and try to give our best . I always have the feeling that we can make things difficult for him, but if he keeps performing the way he does, then we have no choice."

A few months ago, in an interview, Álex Palou stated that the Formula 1 train had already passed for him. The argument made perfect sense. Why pursue an unsecured future in the world of motorsports when things are going so well for him professionally in the United States? He's winning races nonstop, he has the American fans in his pocket, he's doing well financially, and he even has the freedom to make cameos in other competitions. But perhaps it's Formula 1 that can't afford to do without Álex .