{"id":877656,"date":"2026-08-31T01:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T01:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/877656\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T01:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T01:26:12","slug":"palou-wins-his-record-tying-4th-consecutive-indycar-season-championship-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/877656\/","title":{"rendered":"Palou wins his record-tying 4th consecutive IndyCar season championship \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST ALLIS, Wis (AP) \u2014 Alex Palou won his record-tying fourth consecutive IndyCar season championship with a 10th-place finish Sunday night in the resumption of a rain-delayed race at the Milwaukee Mile.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old from Barcelona, Spain, added to yet another dominating year for himself and Chip Ganassi Racing. He has 607 points going into next weekend\u2019s IndyCar season finale at Laguna Seca in California, 100 points more than Christian Lundgaard in second.<\/p>\n

Palou set the stage for his championship-winning result by finishing fifth in Sunday\u2019s regularly scheduled race.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Alex
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Palou (10) of Spain stands during the National Anthem before the IndyCar Freedom 250 Grand Prix auto race in Washington, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very tough and long day for everyone,\u201d Palou said, \u201cbut it was cool. \u2026 I think we did over 400 laps today and we\u2019re not used to that. We\u2019re used to doing only one race and that just didn\u2019t make it easy at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palou\u2019s four consecutive championships match the record set by Sebastien Bourdais from 2004-07. He also is the youngest driver in series history with five titles. He trails A.J. Foyt (seven) and Scott Dixon (six).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a record-setting 18th title won by a Ganassi driver, one more than Team Penske.<\/p>\n

In 17 races this season, Palou has six wins, 12 top-five finishes and 14 top-10 results.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to compare. Honestly, it\u2019s very tough,\u201d Palou said of his five season championships. \u201cI feel like every single one (is) super special. This one, I feel like every year I\u2019m able to enjoy more and more because I have the experience from the previous one and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to happen again or not. So I keep on enjoying every single one more. So I would say this has been the most special so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

IndyCar completed 90 of the scheduled 250 laps at the 1.015-mile oval on Saturday before the race was postponed because of rain and wet track conditions.<\/p>\n

Palou was coming off a 2025 season in which he won eight races, including his first and only Indy 500 title.<\/p>\n

Most impressive has been his consistency. Over the past two seasons, he hasn\u2019t had back-to-back finishes outside the top 10 in 33 races. He was 20th in the Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington, D.C. last weekend, only the third time in two years he ended up 20th or worse.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Sign<\/p>\n

The championship caps a year that began with London\u2019s High Court ordering Palou to pay McLaren Racing more than $12 million in a breach of contract suit the team filed when the Spaniard backed out of two different deals with the racing team.<\/p>\n

Palou has instead stuck with Ganassi, the team he joined in 2021 after spending his rookie IndyCar season with Dale Coyle Racing. In May, Palou signed a multiyear contract extension with Ganassi to continue their relationship beyond the previous deal that ran through the end of 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean they gave me the opportunity since 2021 to drive for them and to drive for a championship-winning team,\u201d Palou said, \u201cand since then it\u2019s been just an incredible ride with everybody on the team, the sponsors. They keep on giving me all the tools necessary to fight for wins and championships and so on, so I owe everything to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

\n See AP\u2019s full auto racing coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST ALLIS, Wis (AP) \u2014 Alex Palou won his record-tying fourth consecutive IndyCar season championship with a 10th-place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-877656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}