Alex Palou is a three-time IndyCar Series champion, with the last two clinched in stunning back-to-back success. Yet, even as a reigning champ, Palou feels his resume is unfinished without a victory in the Indianapolis 500.

“You cannot be an amazing IndyCar driver without winning the Indy 500, for sure,” Palou told Motorsport.com. “I would say winning it multiple times, it’s really tough just because it doesn’t depend only on you. But winning it one time with the team I have run has to be done. I don’t need to do it next year or the following one; I have a lot of years to do it.” 

While the Spaniard has yet to win a race on an oval, he finished runner-up in the 2021 edition of the Indy 500 after leading the second-most laps (35). He also captured the pole for the 2023 event. In his five career Indy 500 starts, he has led in four of them for a total of 119 laps. 

Despite his strong form in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” Palou takes nothing for granted after witnessing how tough it has been for Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon over the years. A six-time series champion, Dixon’s stout record at the Indy 500 includes ultimate glory in 2008 but it stands as his only victory in 22 starts, which also includes three runner-up finishes, five poles and 677 laps led (most all-time).

Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda crossing the bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the Month of May

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

“Dixon, it’s wild that he only has one, but that’s how it goes,” Palou said. “And he’s the best IndyCar driver we’ve had in, I would say, almost ever. Yeah, hopefully, I can win it someday. But, yes, I don’t think the job is complete until we win an Indy 500, which would mean that I won on an oval, as well.”

Further regarding his own legacy and what has been achieved in only five seasons in the sport, the 27-year-old Palou doesn’t think about how much higher the ceiling can go.

“I think it’s really tough to win one championship,” Palou said. “It’s tougher to win two. And it’s tougher, tougher to win three. I think it just becomes more difficult every time, even if it seems that we’re halfway to six, we are a long, long way.”

But that is already halfway to Dixon.

“Yeah, but it’s 100% of what I’ve done,” Palou said. “It’s a lot, so I don’t know where is the limit. I’m really pretty sure that with this team and with the work that they put in and what I want to put in, we can keep on winning and fighting for championships. Yes, I want to win eight, but I’m focused on next year. I don’t try and win eight and that’s my goal. 

And staying in to the present moment has Palou not only locked in on becoming the first driver from his home country to win the Indy 500, but also capturing three consecutive championships – a mark that would move him alongside Dario Franchitti’s magical run from 2009-11. 

“I’ll try and win the Indy 500 next year and the championship and tie with Dario and be like, ‘Hey, I’ve done it as well,’” Palou said. “So, that’s the next goal. I’m not thinking about anything else than that just to be able to make fun of Dario; that’s the goal.”

Despite some teething issues — Formula 1‘s first Las Vegas Grand Prix on and around the gambling haven’s iconic Strip was both an on-track and commercial success. After several hiccups during practice the race turned out to be entertaining, and the marketing and hospitality-driven hype around the race ensured the event generated more tax revenue than any other event in Las Vegas history, with the economic impact estimated at $1.5b. It turned what had been one of Vegas’ quietest weekends of the year, one week before Thanksgiving, into one of its rowdiest.

But that commercial success, a significant part of which flowed back to the Strip’s giant casinos and F1 itself, also came at a price for many of Sin City’s residents. 

Locals faced nine months of disruptions as F1 commissioned road resurfacing, built an entire paddock on the plot of land it acquired adjacent to the Strip, and then closed off some of Vegas’ main arteries for the race itself. The numerous construction projectsIt sent commuter traffic into disarray and also came at a huge cost for several local businesses who saw their properties largely cut off.

Some of them, like Battista’s Hole in the Wall and the Stage Door Casino, were unlucky to be based on Flamingo Road on the inside of the circuit, being pincered in between the Strip and Koval Lane, both of which form part of the 3.8 mile track. They jointly sued the Las Vegas Grand Prix, citing “wrongful interference with business rights” and demanding compensation for lost revenue, which they claim amounted to approximately $5 million over the course of 2023.

A view of Las Vegas

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Tonya Markin, the co-owner of Battista’s Hole in the Wall, told the Nevada Current some local businesses were suffering from “F1 PTSD” when the build-up started for next week’s second running, fearing they will see “another big drop in our revenue.”

F1, which promotes the race itself, is well aware of the trouble it caused in year one, with Greg Maffei, the outgoing CEO of F1 owner Liberty Media issuing an apology for the disruption brought to the city after last year’s event. For year two,organisers have promised a smoother build-up, which started much later than last year as a lot of the ground work had already been done in 2023, including the one-off repaving process.

Steve Hill, the CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), the destination’s marketing organization, said reducing disruption to a minimum was one of the event’s main priorities this time around.

“We had eight months building a circuit and lining the barricades and all that, so it was an amazing accomplishment that Liberty Media and the Formula 1 folks did, but it was tough on the city,” Hill acknowledged.

“It’s a tough race to put on, down one of the busiest streets in the world. We didn’t want to have to do that to the community on a repetitive basis, and we knew we weren’t going to have to because we don’t have to build a new road way every year. […] We learned a lot from last year and the grand prix learned a lot from last year, and this year has really been very smooth and has not been disruptive.”

Work in Progress at the Las Vegas F1 course

Photo by: Jim Utter

It’s the communication breakdown over 2023 that seems to pain residents the most, leaving many in the dark over the level of disruption as work on the circuit progressed and fluctuated week to week. 

Hill explains, “It was a pretty remarkable achievement to go from making an announcement on March 30 2022 to 17 months later having a race. There was a lot of communication but there was a lot of learning along the way. It was not a linear process that first year, it just couldn’t be. We thought one thing this week and then two weeks later we thought, ‘that was wrong and we need to change that’, so there was a lot of spaghetti being made that everybody was experiencing.

“The first five months of the congestion last year was just building the road, the circuit itself. That was really disruptive, it’s a hard thing to do. It’s hard to communicate that construction process because it’s moving. Most construction projects it’s like, ‘don’t go there for the next two years’. Well, we were two weeks here, and two weeks here, that’s a very difficult thing for people to react to.”

A lot of the confusion, according to Hill, came down to organisers learning by doing as they tried to bring the event to life in a compressed timeframe, which caused “U-turns” in the process. To better accommodate and inform local residents this year, organisers implemented an interactive map that allows anyone to navigate construction, barriers or closures up to and on race weekend. Little adjustments and solutions like the map, puts the event much closer to achieving a balance, where organising the race ticks enough boxes for the wider community.

“This year the community knows more [on] what to expect,” he said. “It needs to work for everybody, it needs to work for the businesses, the sponsors of the race, the resort community and it needs to work for the community itself. This year I think we are much closer to that balance than we were last year.”

A welcome to Las Vegas Max Verstappen sign in the paddock

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Another point of criticism was the notion that most of the economic benefits stayed within the Strip’s resort and casino community, with little planned outside the direct environment of the circuit to support the rest of the area. That’s changing this year with an NFL game on Sunday between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Denver Broncos at Allegiant Stadium, on the south side of Las Vegas Boulevard.

None of us were sure what the city was going to look like, [or] what would be possible last year and most of the city outside of the race, went dark,” Hill added. “This year we have a Raiders game and a partnership with the Raiders and the race. On Sunday there is a concert series downtown to complement [it]. It will be Adele’s last weekend [of her residency] in Las Vegas too. So, the properties have brought entertainment back outside of the circuit area and all of those things will elevate that weekend too and I think it will help elevate the race as well.

“They have added [10,000] more general admission tickets, which I think responds to a demand that showed up last year and we heard a lot about, but was really too late to do anything about. There is a fan experience this year, that is a free experience for both visitors and community alike. That helps build both goodwill in the community and an additional fanbase in the south west, which is important for the race going forward.”

Worlds collided when Trackhouse Racing teammates Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch met up with RB’s Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson in Texas earlier this year. All four Red Bull athletes got together to see what would happen when you put an F1 driver in a stock car on a dirt oval no less.

Van Gisbergen is a three-time Supercars champion who became a full-time NASCAR driver after his stunning Cup win debut in the 2023 Chicago Street Course race. Zilisch is no slouch either as one of the biggest rising stars in the world of stock car racing, this year winning his Xfinity debut race at just 18 years old and snagging a class win in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. 

Both were there to coach the F1 pilots as they learned their way around the track. Tsunoda, who is currently competing in his fourth full-time season as an F1 driver, was paired with Zilisch. To the surprise of none, SVG selected his fellow Kiwi (Lawson).

Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

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With a handy ‘Dirt 101’ whiteboard, the NASCAR stars informed Tsunoda and Lawson of what awaited them in the challenges ahead. They explained the cars and how they operate, but perhaps it would have been simpler to invoke the immortal words of Doc Hudson: “Turn right to go left.”

With help from their NASCAR coaches, the two drivers started their test with ‘finding the line’ — keeping the car within two bollards while ripping around the track. Tsunoda nailed it on his first try, but it didn’t go as smoothly for Lawson. SVG noted he wanted Lawson “up on the fence,” but Lawson perhaps took that too literally, clobbering one of the outer bollards that lined the wall. However, he had a bit of redemption in the ‘cornering speed’ test that followed as Tsunoda lost the tail and spun out. Yes, swear words did come across the radio, but would we have expected anything else? 

Now on equal ground, it’s on to qualifying where Tsunoda re-asserted himself with a lap time a few tenths faster than Lawson. It gave Tsunoda the preferred line for the start with the two NASCAR drivers spotting them from above. Zilisch carefully explained where the acceleration zone was but the fiery Japanese driver wasn’t very interested. “I’m going whenever I want so tell Liam that,” he radioed.

Liam Lawson

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

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Meanwhile, SVG had some very NASCAR-esque advice for his countryman. “You’re also on the inside for Turn 1 so don’t be afraid to feed him a right rear.” 

Tsunoda took early control but Lawson was fighting hard to stay with him over the course of the five-lap sprint race. He did feed him that right rear about halfway through the race, but Tsunoda seemed unfazed and carried on. In a slide job that would make dirt racing ace (and 2021 NASCAR Cup champion) Kyle Larson proud, Lawson absolutely sent it in on Tsunoda to finally take the lead. Although he completely cleared him, Tsunoda was clever enough to cross back under him and snag the victory.

In fact, Tsunoda’s only hiccup was holding the trophy backwards during the post-race celebrations, but a pressing question remains: When do we get to see them face off against their NASCAR counterparts?

You can watch and enjoy the shenanigans in the Red Bull Motorsports video below.

Factory Ducati MotoGP rider Francesco Bagnaia believes he has done a “better job” than Pramac’s Jorge Martin in terms of pure results this season but would be “happy” if his rival is crowned champion.

Bagnaia is on the verge of losing his riders’ crown to Martin in this weekend’s final showdown at Barcelona, having dropped 24 points behind in the standings.

Although the Italian has shown sensational form on the Ducati this year, winning 10 out of the 19 grands prix held so far, a series of crashes and unforced errors have been his undoing, including an incident during a critical point of the championship in the Malaysian GP sprint race.

But the two-time champion feels his performances have been superior to those of Martin, who has won just three times on Sundays this year, and that a lack of consistency has left him trailing the Pramac rider in the championship.

Asked if Martin is more deserving of the title this year, he said: “I think both of us are deserving the title because [of] what we did.

“Absolutely, in terms of mistakes, I did a lot [of them] and if you want to be a champion you have to be more precise, more consistent and Jorge was more consistent than me.

“In terms of results, it’s clear that we did a better job because I won 10 races on Sundays, six races on Saturdays. So in terms of pure results, we did a very good job.

Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing, Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: MotoGP

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“But I think both of us are deserving of the title. What I want to say is that it will be strange [to lose the title after winning 10 races].

“But in [any] case, [if] Jorge will win the title, I will be happy for him because we have known each other for a long time and I’m happy that a rider I know very well is deserving of the title.”

Bagnaia and Martin were in opposite positions heading into last year’s season finale at Valencia, with the latter then facing a 21-point deficit to his factory Ducati rival.

It prompted Martin to engage in some mind games over the course of the weekend, including following him on track during certain sessions, but Bagnaia made it clear that he wouldn’t resort to such practices in Barcelona.

“The only thing I will do is if he will start [the race] behind me I will not push,” he said.

“I know perfectly that on my side mind games are not working. So I never wanted to do, I never did and I will continue doing my job because then I think Jorge understood from the experience of last year that he just lost time doing this.

“It’s better to do your job and prepare everything perfectly and then decide it in the race.”

Photos from Barcelona GP – Thursday

Mercedes is set to use the final Formula 1 races of the season to gain further understanding of its weaknesses, having accepted it will finish fourth in the constructors’ standings.

The Silver Arrows displayed a turn in fortunes mid-season and after a winless 2023 picked up three race victories during the summer.

George Russell capitalised on contact between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to win in Austria, before Lewis Hamilton took two race wins in Britain and Belgium, but the team has failed to continue that form into the end of the campaign.

Although Russell initially led early in the wet conditions at Interlagos last time out, he fell to fourth after pitting before the red flag to extend a run of races without a podium dating back to the September’s Azerbaijan GP, when Russell inherited third after Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez‘s late tangle.

With the gap to Red Bull in third now 162 points, and having seen its struggles lie in similar areas since the dawn of the ground-effect era, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin insisted the team would now focus on how to get on top of those issues for 2025 and the final year of the current rule cycle.

“The main thing in terms of learning is that the corners that we are weak in are still the same ones. It is the interconnected, slow corners. That is normally where we trip up,” explained Shovlin.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15, George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“Going into the weekend, we certainly had sector two in Brazil, which has a lot of those corners, on our radar as an area that we might struggle.

“The big focus in these remaining races for us is learning what we can. We are in a position in the championship where we cannot challenge in front of us. It is very unlikely we are going to see any challenge from behind.

“Our focus has very much shifted to learning what we need to this year to apply to next year in order to get on top of those issues.”

Despite its struggles in the rain during the Brazilian weekend, Shovlin pointed to the advantages of being able to run the car in the wet as part of its learning process ahead of the new campaign.

“In Brazil, it was useful having that wet running because you want to get a read on the car in the wet,” he added. “There is always a few wet quali and race sessions over the year. It was reassuring to see that the pace in those conditions was decent.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, on the pit wall

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“But we are going to be looking at all the remaining tracks to assess performance and just confirm what we understand about this car and whether the changes we are hoping to make for next year are going to improve those areas.”

On the specific characteristics that can be reviewed, Shovlin said: “Vegas has a lot of straight line and low-speed corners. Qatar is a faster track and then, finishing in Abu Dhabi, which is a mix of everything, it will give us a good read on how we are performing and who is the benchmark.

“Sometimes it is Red Bull, sometimes McLaren, sometimes Ferrari, but it will allow us to establish the gap that we need to close down over those winter months.”

Red Bull was concerned about being portrayed as the “villain” in the new Formula 1 film, co-producer Jerry Bruckheimer has revealed.

The upcoming F1 movie has seen heavy involvement from the real-world paddock, with filming continuing to take place on grand prix weekends, including at the recent Mexico City Grand Prix where star Brad Pitt was pictured waving to fans.

The cars used for the fictional APXGP feature F1 bodywork bolted to F2 machinery, with Mercedes having created the unique vehicles.

Due to this involvement, the black-and-gold cars feature Mercedes and AMG logos, something that led to rival teams, including Red Bull, fearing how they would be portrayed in the production.

In conversation with outgoing Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei at the 2024 Investor Day event in New York, Bruckheimer said: “The interesting part is that, since we teamed up with Mercedes, the other teams said ‘wait a second, this movie is going to be about Mercedes and we’re going to look bad’.

“Red Bull said ‘we’re going to be the villains’. It took us three years to convince them that they weren’t going to be the villains and we finally got to a place where all the teams are really leaning into us to really help us.”

When the title of the film was revealed in July, it was met with a mixed reaction, with it branded as either alienating or a good piece of marketing by our writers.

Brad Pitt

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

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Asked why this simplistic titling was important, Bruckheimer said: “Because the greatest racing movies were Le Mans and Grand Prix, and now there’s going to be F1.”

F1 has a release date of 25 June 2025 in the UK but details on where the global premiere will take place remain unconfirmed with Bruckheimer joking, “That’s up for discussion.”

When Maffei said, “I thought we had an idea. I thought I knew, but OK,” Bruckheimer added:

“I think we’re going to show it to the drivers and to the F1 teams in Monaco and then we’ll have premieres in New York, London and a bunch of other cities.

“Brad is really invested in this movie. He doesn’t like to do press but I think we’ll take him on a world tour where he’ll be glad to show his efforts in driving and acting in this movie.”