Alex Palou is 2025 IndyCar champion with Portland podium finish

It wasn’t a win, but in the end — it was more than enough. Alex Palou brought home a third-place finish in Sunday’s BITNILE.com Grand Prix of Portland to clinch the 2025 IndyCar title with two races to spare.

The Spaniard’s 2025 campaign has been the most dominant of his IndyCar career, with eight victories and 10 top-two finishes in 15 events, including his first triumph in the Indianapolis 500 and wins on every track type.

Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Lumen via Getty Images

It’s Palou’s third-consecutive series title and fourth championship campaign in six IndyCar seasons, placing him among IndyCar’s all-time greats at just 28 years old. He trails only A.J. Foyt (seven championships) and teammate Scott Dixon (six) for the most titles in IndyCar history.

“It’s unbelievable,” an elated Palou said afterward. “It’s crazy. I couldn’t be happier right now. This has been an amazing season, an amazing five years with CGR. I have no words to describe how grateful I am to everybody at CGR, especially Chip (Ganassi, co-owner), our partners and all our fans.”

Clinching in Portland wasn’t a surprise for the No. 10 team. Palou entered the weekend with a 121-point cushion and needed only 108 points on Pato O’Ward to secure the title. O’Ward claimed the pole on Saturday and threatened to extend the title fight to next weekend at the Milwaukee Mile, but slowed on lap 22 and had to come to pit road for an unscheduled stop.

Arrow McLaren confirmed on social media that a wire connection to O’Ward’s DI box malfunctioned. His team quickly made necessary repairs, but he lost 10 laps in the process and was relegated to 25th at race’s end.

From that point, the title fight was essentially over. But Palou still had a race win to compete for.
With the championship in hand, Palou closed up a 20-second gap to battle Will Power and Christian Lundgaard for the win at Portland International Raceway.

He briefly overtook Lundgaard before falling victim to a crossover with 14 to go. The battle rolled on from there, but Palou ultimately had to settle for third after going off-course and narrowly dodging an advertisement board when another attempt to pass the Dane went awry with four laps to go.

“The car has been unbelievable, (even) today,” Palou said. “It was a shame that we couldn’t really end it with another win, but we (fought). I gave everything that I had. I tried everything to try to overtake Lundgaard, but I couldn’t make it today.”

With the title secured, Palou will have two chances to add to his win total at the Milwaukee Mile and Nashville Superspeedway. He could tie Foyt (1964) and Al Unser (1970) for the most wins in an IndyCar campaign if he sweeps the final oval events.