Q&A: Indy 500 champ Alex Palou seized his moment and his milk strategy

USA Today

26-05-2025

Q&A: Indy 500 champ Alex Palou seized his moment and his milk strategy
Alex Palou made his winning move long before the 2025 Indianapolis 500 ended. Well, relatively long before. In recent years, the Indy 500 and its 200 laps around Indianapolis Motor Speedway often came down to super late or last-lap passes, but Palou saw his opportunity to steal the lead with 14 laps to go and took it.
Behind the wheel of his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Palou darted out to the inside of then-leader Marcus Ericsson, the 2022 Indy 500 winner, and quickly overtook him. Lap 187 was the first time Palou had been the leader all race. At more than 200 miles per hour with Ericsson and the rest of the field chasing him, he just had to hold on.
INDY 500 HISTORY: Every Indianapolis 500 champion since 2000
Palou won his first Indy 500, marking his fifth victory in the first six races of the IndyCar Series season. After three top-5 Indy 500 finishes, it was his first career victory on an oval, and the 28-year-old three-time IndyCar champion became the first Indy 500 winner from Spain.
For The Win spoke with Palou a couple hours after his Indy 500 checkered flag Sunday to talk about his race-winning strategy, his milk celebration and what this monumental win means to him.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Congratulations on the win! You had an emotional reaction in the car after you won the race, and then you abandoned the car and ran to your team. What were you feeling in that moment?
It's amazing, honestly. It's been an incredible couple of hours since we've finished the race. I just wanted to celebrate. It was like a really long 10 laps when I was leading. Like, they were super long. It felt like 10 races, honestly. And I just wanted the race to end with us in P1, so whenever it ended, I was like, I just wanted to explode and share with everybody how happy I was.
The car's in the Winner's Circle, you get that bottle of milk, team owner Chip Ganassi is right there with you. What was going through your mind?
It's amazing. I had all my team there with me. They were crying, which shows how much effort they put in this race. In all the races, but especially this race, everybody just puts so much attention to it. So many hours, late nights just for us to be here today. Chip was super happy, obviously, and it's always good to have your boss happy.
The Indy 500 winner always celebrates with a bottle of milk. How good did that milk taste, even after several hours of racing?
I'm not a huge whole-milk guy, like, just plain milk. But it tastes amazing. I loved it. It was super sweet. It just felt amazing. I was the best drink ever.
Why did you choose not to dump the Indy 500 milk on your head?
There were a lot of fans and people in this paddock that have been here for so long, and they always told me not to do it because, for them, that was not the way to celebrate. And I was like, OK, I'm gonna try not to do it. On top of that, I thought that just drinking it and sharing it with the team was sweeter.
What was the strategy that got you to the lead at the end of the race with your sneak-attack to pass Marcus Ericsson with 14 laps left?
I knew I was on a tire and fuel disadvantage to him and to some other drivers. I knew that it was just going to get tougher for me to pass if I was going to wait. So as soon as I had the opportunity, I knew that I had to take it. It was on the limit, like it was very late. But I just had to go for it, and then hope that it was going to be enough.
Did you think about waiting at all to do it a little bit closer to the finish of the race?
I knew that waiting was going to be probably safer in a way. You always want to attack quite late so they cannot overreact. But at the same time, with the traffic that we had there, I knew that was just making it tougher and tougher to follow and to have an opportunity to overtake. So I was like, "You know what? If I have the opportunity to be first, I'll take it, and then we'll see what we can do from there."
How do you view your career now as an Indy 500 champ and a three-time IndyCar Series champ?
It's just going to be better. The introductions now are going to be a lot more fun, and my life is just going to be a bit more complete. But this doesn't change everything. We still want more — we want a second one, we want more championships, we want more wins and we want to keep on working towards those wins.
After three previous top-5 finishes in the Indy 500 and that runner-up one in 2021, what was different about today for you and your team?
My car was really fast, and we were lucky. Nothing went wrong for us. Everything went the way [it] had to be for me to be the champion today — the yellows and the pit stops, the strategy. It was just my day, honestly.
What was your mindset going into this race? Did you wake up knowing that today was going to be your day?
No, you always wake up feeling like you have a chance. But actually, when I was stepping into [the] car, I was like, "Man, this could be the last time that we step into the car without being a 500 champion." I had that feeling. But normally when I wake up, I just feel normal. I feel like we have a chance to win, but we need to earn it.
Did you know you were going to win before the race ended? Was there a moment after you took the lead where you thought, I'm going to win this thing?
Never. Never. You can have just a slight moment in the last lap, in the last corner, and suddenly, that's it. Your race is over. So I knew I had chances. I knew that we were in the best position, but — I didn't know that we're going to win until we crossed that start-finish line.
It's your fifth win in the first six races of the IndyCar season. How are you so dominant this season on so many different tracks?
It's been an incredible season so far. I owe everything to the team, to our partners that allow us to do what we do. But yeah, they just make me look good on track, honestly. We had winning cars every single race weekend that we show up this season so far.
Has it sunk in yet?
Not yet. I mean, a little bit, obviously. We've been celebrating and talking about it since we crossed that start-finish line, but yeah, I still cannot believe it.