Inside Line: Defining Moment of Alex Palou’s Championship Season?

Today’s question: The biggest moment of Alex Palou’s 2025 championship season clearly was his first victory in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. With no repeat “500” win this year, what was the defining moment of the 2026 championship for the Spaniard, who clinched his fifth NTT INDYCAR SERIES title and record-tying fourth in a row?

Curt Cavin: To me, it was that stretch of five races between the Sonsio Grand Prix and the XPEL Grand Prix of Road America when Palou won five consecutive poles (photo, above). That was qualifying domination on two road courses, two ovals and a street circuit, and while he only converted one of them into a race win, he stretched his lead from 17 points to 60 points. Meanwhile, starting on pole each week was delivering psychological blows as opponents were forced to try different strategies in an effort to beat him. Imagine if Palou had won two or three of those races instead of having a five-race average finish of 7.0. He’d have locked up the title much, much sooner than he did.

Eric Smith: To me, his defining moment could be his Long Beach victory, but I’m going with the Nashville win (photo, above). The reason is that, in my opinion, that’s where he unofficially clinched the championship. Palou’s 2026 oval finishes entering Nashville were 24th, seventh and 17th. He had just one finish better than fifth in the previous six races on the season, so the talking point entering that weekend was how much his competition could cut into his championship lead. Second place in points, Kyle Kirkwood, started from the pole and Palou started fourth. Palou though, led 97 of 225 laps and stomped on the hearts of his competitors with not just a solid day, but a victory. He entered Nashville with a 56-point lead and left with an 83-point advantage. In my mind, that effectively sealed the championship.

Arni Sribhen: The tone for Alex Palou’s 2026 NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship-winning season was set in March, when he scored podium finishes in three of the first four races – including wins on the streets of St. Petersburg and Barber Motorsports Park (photo, above). Sure, other drivers led the championship in March, but the only thing that kept Palou from a wire-to-wire win was contact that resulted in a DNF at Phoenix. But the latest entry in Palou’s run though INDYCAR history books was again defined by his exceptional consistency set in motion by early dominance. He’s followed that script before, and by the time the rest of the field had figured out who this season’s challengers would be, Palou had already left them behind.

Paul Kelly: The two-race stretch of Nashville and Portland. After Pato O’Ward won on Fourth of July weekend at Mid-Ohio, Alex Palou led Kyle Kirkwood by 65 points with seven races remaining in the season. Palou had won just one of the previous six races, at Detroit, after his sizzling start of three wins from the first five. That led me – and others, I bet – to think, “Maybe we have a title race this season, after all?” Uh, no, we did not. Palou then curb-stomped the field at the next two races, on the oval at Nashville and the road course at Portland (photo, above), leading more than half the laps in each race and taking a 110-point lead in the standings. And just like that, any idea of a championship race was over. Palou didn’t feel quite as dominant for the entire season as he did in 2025, but his spurts like the season-opening run and this summer stretch were more than enough to win the Astor Challenge Cup for the fifth time. And I don’t expect El Rey to hand over his crown in 2027, either.