Chip Ganassi and Alex Palou – BITNILE.com Grand Prix of Portland – Photo by Joe Skibinski

By John Sturbin, Raceday San Antonio

The grinding accident that prematurely ended Chip Ganassi’s promising open-wheel driving career 41 years ago may be ancient history to casual INDYCAR fans. That crash, however, set into motion a motorsports dynasty currently celebrating its latest NTT IndyCar Series championship.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s resident wunderkind, Alex Palou, clinched his fourth championship and third in a row with two races remaining on the 17-race 2025 schedule. A 28-year-old native of Spain, Palou is just the fourth driver to three-peat as series champion. His eight wins heading into today’s season-ending Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix presented by WillScot at Nashville Superspeedway has tied him for fourth-most on the all-time list. Palou, driver of the No. 10 DHL Honda, is the sixth driver in series history to record four or more championships.

In the process, Palou secured the 17th series championship for Chip Ganassi Racing, tying the organization with Team Penske for most titles in INDYCAR history. CGR has won 12 championships since the unification of domestic open-wheel racing in 2008. Additionally, Palou strategist Barry Wanser clinched his 16th championship with CGR while Ricky Davis earned his seventh title as a crew chief, and 17th with the team.

Palou previously won the championship for CGR in 2021, 2023 and 2024. At 28 years and 131-days-old, Palou is the youngest driver to win four championships in INDYCAR history. Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais (28 and 235-days-old) and Houston native A.J. Foyt Jr. (29 and 254-days- old) are the only other drivers to win four championships in their 20s.

His third consecutive championship allowed Palou to join Ted Horn (1946-48), Bourdais (2004-07) and Dario Franchitti of Scotland (2009-11) as the only drivers to achieve a three-peat. Palou’s fourth Astor Challenge Cup in the last five seasons also tied him with Mario Andretti, Bourdais and Franchitti for third on the all-time championship list, trailing only Foyt (seven) and native New Zealander Scott Dixon (six).

“I did say at the beginning of the year we’re just tapping Alex’s talent,” Ganassi, 67, said during a rare and wide-ranging ZOOM video news conference with national media earlier this week. “We may have scratched the surface. I think unfortunately for everyone else, I don’t think he’s hit the ceiling, to give you a few phrases there.

“It’s very rewarding personally. Obviously, to have a driver like that under your roof is a great thing. You pair a great driver with a great group of people, great engine, great tires, great chassis…a group of people that know what they’re doing when it comes to race strategy and screwing cars together and what have you, you end up with a pretty good package.”

Ganassi introduced himself to INDYCAR in May 1982 as fastest rookie qualifier for the Indy 500, in which he made five starts. But his career was cut short by a massive crash on July 22, 1984 during the Michigan 500 run under Championship Auto Racing Teams sanction on the 2-mile Michigan International Speedway. Ganassi’s No. 40 Patrick Racing March 84C/Cosworth spun on corner-exit of Turn 2 and collided with Al Unser Jr.’s No. 7 March 84C/Cosworth fielded by Galles Racing. Ganassi’s car skated across a grassy runoff area, slammed into the inside Armco barrier, tumbled multiple times and broke apart.

Unser was uninjured, but Ganassi suffered a closed-head injury. While initially suffering short-term memory loss, Ganassi eventually made a full recovery. However, he never returned to driving fulltime,  instead making brief appearances in both CART and IMSA sports car events in 1986.

Shifting his goals to team ownership, Ganassi acquired a share of another racing team before establishing Chip Ganassi Racing in 1990. He is now the only team-owner in motorsports history to have won the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, the Brickyard 400, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring and most recently the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

“This is all I do,” Ganassi said in his opening remarks. “I don’t have any other businesses. I wish I did sometimes. No, this is all I do. That’s all I want to do.

“I love racing. I love being at the front. I love all forms of racing. I can appreciate every form. Over the years, we’ve been involved in many. I love the business. Our team is not overloaded with money, but we get the most out of the money we spend. We’re not the most well-funded team out there.

“I got a great group of people that know how to get the most out of what they work with. We have a lot of Swiss Army knives around the race shop that we get the most out of our people. I’m really proud of them. This is another championship for them.”

Following is an edited transcript of the question-and-answer portion of the Chip Ganassi interview:

QUESTION: You have reached a point where you’ve got some numbers that are real impressive not just in racing, but also North American sports in general. Can you speak to that side of the situation?

CHIP GANASSI: “Yeah, I think it means a little bit. I think first of all, growing up in Pittsburgh, hearing stories of the 1960 home run with Bill Mazeroski in the bottom of the ninth in (World Series) Game 7 (against the New York Yankees). Everything from that to the Super Steelers of the ’70s.

“You grew up around Pittsburgh, you were expected to win. It wasn’t about just putting a team out there. You’re expected to win in this town. That’s kind of how I grew up.

“Then you overlay that with me getting involved in racing. I’ve often said that it’s just as hard to be at the back as it is at the front, so you might as well be at the front. You’ve got to work really, really hard either place. You probably have to work harder when you’re at the back than when you’re at the front.

“There will be plenty of time that I’ll speak to my grandkids one day about what it was like back in the day to win a bunch of championships and everything. I hate to say this, but the way we look at it is we’re focused on Nashville. We’re a little bit pissed-off about Milwaukee, so…that’s all I can tell you. We’re disappointed we didn’t win in Milwaukee.”

Q: One of the unique things about how your team has accomplished its championships, very few instances of a one-time champion. Jimmy Vasser got things kicked off in ’96, Alex Zanardi multiple. Juan Pablo Montoya got his one in ’99. For the most part your championships have been won where a driver gets two or three or more. Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Alex now, the original Alex Zanardi. Is it the consistency among the crew and personnel that has built this?

GANASSI: “I got to be honest with you, I never had that question before. It makes me think a little bit. I don’t know what is the reason. I don’t know. We obviously have a driver that understands what makes the car work. We have a group of people that understand what makes the car work.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, too. I think you can look at not each championship, but certainly the few of them here and there, I’m not blind to the fact, I should say, that some of my strongest competitors are in disarray right now. That’s part of it. I mean, part of our success _ I’m not throwing anybody under the bus _ but part of our success is other teams are having some challenges right now. But that’s part of it. It’s part of it. It’s part of the game, yeah.”

Q: I want to address the Red Bull angle. Obviously with Honda preparing to kick the tires, looking towards their future, do they want to go stock car racing? Are you completely out of the NASCAR charter business or do you talk with Honda and say maybe if NASCAR releases a couple of more charters, maybe we can get back in that business together? Are you open to that at all?

GANASSI: “Am I open to it? I wouldn’t say yes or no. I mean, I can say this, I’ve never had that conversation with Honda, never had that conversation with NASCAR. I’m smart enough to say I would never say never.

“The formula changed since I was there. It’s a formula that lends itself to the kind of racing and engineering that we do, that we’re good at. The answer to that is yes. But I’ve not had any of those discussions or given it much thought really.”

Q: There are reports that Red Bull is interested in Alex. Your thoughts?

GANASSI: “I’m glad we’re getting this out of the way early. I read that myself. There was nobody quoted in there. I talk to Palou. Palou said he’s never talked to anybody, doesn’t know anything about it. I talked to his management. They know nothing about it. I know nothing about it. I think it’s a click-bait story. Somebody needs to brush up their investigative journalism.”

Q: You’re still fighting for Alex. I suppose everything that you guys have accomplished together and everything that you’ve gone through together, you don’t want to lose him, correct?

GANASSI: “No. I mean, of course I don’t want to lose him. Who wants to lose somebody good? Where you going with that? He had an opportunity to leave and he decided to stay. I don’t know how many times I have to say that. Everybody can see that, I think, yeah.”

Q: You’ve had great drivers. This guy has won four of five. That’s pretty special. That’s Jimmie Johnson, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher-like. How does a driver do that? How does a team and a driver achieve this and just hit on it and become so superior to the rest of the field?

GANASSI: “I mean, if you take out the obvious things like talent and ability and good engineering and whatever with all these people, I’d like to think in our team we work a little harder at giving drivers what they need.

“That might be different for Palou than it is Dixon, or different than Kyffin (Simpson). Different people need different things. We’re not etched in granite with every single thing we do on the team. We personalize whether it’s the setups or treatment of people. Everyone’s not the same.

“I’d like to think we do a good job of getting the most out of our people from top to bottom, from the drivers all the through the organization. It’s because I think I take the time to talk to these people. I’d like to think I do anyway. As I said earlier, this is what I do seven days a week. I work hard at it. My team works hard at it. That’s what we’re trying to do.

“I don’t have any other way to explain it. I talk to you 25 times a year. When you call me, I’m working at the business, I’m in the business. I’m working at it, yeah.

“I like winners, too.”

Q: When you signed Alex Palou in the 2020 off-season, he’d only had one season, he wasn’t particularly established in his INDYCAR career. Now he’s a four-time champion. Did you ever see that potential with Alex when you signed him? What did you see in 2020 to know he was the guy that would lead your future?

GANASSI: “I’ve said this before. The thing that stood out to us, really it’s the ultimate question you ask yourself in this particular sport of INDYCAR racing _ the first and foremost question you have to ask yourself is, ‘Does the guy like Indianapolis?’ I don’t care who you bring there, some guys take to it and some don’t.

“When he was with Dale Coyne, he was pitted right next to us in the race. They had terrible pit stops. They still finished fourth in the race. Said to me that kid likes this place. That’s what we look for, first and foremost _ can he get himself around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway? If you like that, that’s a big start.

“Hey, we’ve seen plenty of guys that are great drivers that haven’t really figured it out there yet. So that was originally what we saw. To say that did we see four championships in five years in him, absolutely not. You would have thought I was off my rocker if I said that in 2020.”

Q: Looking at Alex now after the four championships, where do you rank him with some of the INDYCAR greats? Looking forward to the future, how many championships do you think he could win?

GANASSI: “Again, that’s like you look at quarterbacks in the NFL and you say, ‘Well, gee, where does Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Terry Bradshaw, Tom Brady, who’s the best quarterback?’ Well, these guys, they’re all in different eras, different teams around them. Who’s the best?

“That’s the great thing about sports, we’re never going to know the answers to those things. Head-to-head. Hey, for all these guys, the car’s different, the tire’s different, the engines are different, the weight transfer is different. Everything about Palou’s championship push here the last four or five years, Vasser and Zanardi in the ’90s, they’re 180-degrees different.

“You have a team that’s adapted to that over time and engineering that’s been able to change. If you don’t like change, you’re not going to like the INDYCAR business. Cars change from time to time.

“You say it’s the same car. Bullshit it’s the same car. It’s not the same car. We’ve had everything from the hybrid tossed upon us to harder tires, not-so-good brakes. All these things add up to a really difficult car to drive these days. Completely different than it was in the ’90s.”

Q: Kyffin Simpson, how impressed have you been with him?

GANASSI: “Very good. Very good. We have to get him going on the ovals a little bit better. I think we’re OK at Indianapolis. Boy, we need some help on short-ovals. We have to do some heavy work over the off-season to work on that.”

Q: Last season you loaned Marcus Armstrong out to Meyer Shank Racing. Is he still involved in the ranks of the Chip Ganassi Racing stables?

GANASSI: “Absolutely. He’s a member of our team, yeah.”

Q: We talk about all of this history that Alex and the No. 10 team have hit this year or are approaching or tied. Is there any aspect of his season that particularly has caught your eye or stood out to you as one of the more impressive things they’ve succeeded at or maybe ways in which you will remember this year for that group?

GANASSI: “I would say the short-oval performance, the Iowa and Milwaukee performance. A year ago, we were out to lunch. That will stand out as something. We were just OK there in past years. I mean, obviously Indianapolis. I don’t want to brush over that lightly.

“I mean, yeah, if you look at our short-oval performance, I think that we’re onto some things there that we’re pretty happy about. We’ve improved our street racing a little bit. I would say that’s probably No. 2. We’ve always been kind of OK on the natural road-courses, yeah.”

Q: A post from your team’s social account pointed out it had been 15 years since anyone won the Indy 500 and the championship in the same season. The folks who win the 500 each year, we think of them as some of the greats. Interesting it has been that long since Dario?

GANASSI: “I wouldn’t have guessed that. That seems a little long to me.”

Q: It has been that long since the best driver on that day in May also has been the best driver across the entire season. What do you make of knowing how rare that is and has been the last decade and a half? What do you feel that significance is, that this team rose to the occasion?

GANASSI: “When we win a race, back at the race shop, we do some things. We have a luncheon, talk about the win and whatever. Just recently we had a show of hands about how many people have ever won the Indy 500, how many people have been involved in a team that won the championship. I was surprised at the number of people that hands were raised, that it was their first Indy 500 or their first championship.

“I took a little extra time in the meeting to explain, ‘Don’t take this stuff for granted because it doesn’t happen that often. It looks easy, but it’s not.’

“You can tell me how many times we won the Indy 500. I can tell you how many times we’ve lost it, OK? These things don’t happen often, and they don’t happen matter-of-factly. It takes a lot of work on a lot of people’s part and a lot of luck. We’ve been blessed with that this year so far. We want to keep it going.”

Q: You’ve talked before about how many employees you’ve had in your organization that have been there so many years, that makes up a large amount of your organization. What do you feel has allowed you and what do you hope will allow Chip Ganassi Racing to continue to withstand some of the battles inside the paddock of trying to poach your guys away?

GANASSI: “That’s a good question. We try to give our people what they need. I mean, I don’t think we pay the most money. You have to like to win. There’s plenty of people that have left our team. A lot of them come back after. They go, ‘Geez, I didn’t know what that meant winning all those races and what it’s like when you don’t.’ I’ve heard that story more than 10 times, so…

“You have to have a will to win and a will to be a part of the team. A lot of teams say they’re a team, but they sure don’t look like it to me. I can’t worry about everybody else’s team. I have to worry about my own. I try to do the best job for our people. It’s all I know how to do. It’s all I know what to do. I try to treat everybody right, treat everybody like I want to be treated. I don’t know.”

Q: I want to ask directly if you have any expectation other than having Alex Palou racing in the No. 10 DHL Honda next year for your INDYCAR team?

GANASSI: “No other expectation.”

Q: You’ve talked about the values of the team. That starts at the top. Where did you learn your values? Was it your dad? An upbringing? Somewhere along the lines that you’ve learned this style to translate over to a successful business?

GANASSI: “That’s a good question. You spend a lot of your time in life, in your 20s and 30s, of learning, whether it’s in school or in college or whatever. I had this architect friend of mine tell me one time, ‘You get to a point in life where you’re not emulating everyone else, you’re emulating yourself now.’ That’s who you become one day.

“I’d like to think I’ve taken a lot from a lot of people. I took a lot from my father. I took a lot from great relationships I’ve had with people at Target. I’ve taken parts of Roger Penske. I learned a lot from Mario Andretti. I’ve been fortunate over the years to come in contact with a lot of great people. When you’re in contact with a lot of great people, those things rub off on you.

“Joe Montana. Like having Jimmie Johnson on the team for a couple years. There’s little things of each and every one of these successful people that I’ve been around over the years that rub off on you. I guess that’s a combination of all those is what makes up this championship team.”

Q: Back to the Formula 1 stuff, but in a general way. Do you think that Formula 1 is the biggest threat for you and Alex? You are living a fairy tale. Everyone is going well. Alex is happy. You have a champion for five, seven years. The dream of a European driver is always Formula 1. Maybe that will come in the future for him. You probably would have to fight for him. Do you see this as a threat?

GANASSI: “Look, let me say this. Everybody wants a driver that everybody else wants to have. That means you have something that’s really valuable, OK?

“Do I think Formula 1’s the biggest threat? You know what I think the biggest threat is…the biggest threat is ourselves, each of us. Each of us is our biggest threat, OK? I work to create the best possible environment for our people. It’s the same for our drivers. I work to give them the best possible environment. That’s all I know how to do. It seems to be working.

“Like I said, Alex had an opportunity to leave and he didn’t. I don’t know what else to tell you. I take him at his word when he says he likes it here and he’s having a great time.”

Q: Obviously we hear this towards the end of every INDYCAR season, talking about potential format changes, Playoffs. Can you reiterate your position as a team-owner on any talk about Playoffs or championship format changes?

GANASSI: “I called up Herb Simon. I say, ‘Herb, when you hire Caitlin Clark for the WNBA team, you bring her on the team, do you want to change all the rules there?’ Did they change the rules when Joe Montana won four Super Bowls? Did they change the rules with the Yankees when the Yankees had the kind of run they had there years back? I don’t know.

“I also think you look at people that have changed the rules to Playoff format, you have just as many people that are against it, a lot of people that are against it. I’m not throwing down on NASCAR or anything. I just don’t think that’s the history of the sport. I think you have to protect the history a little bit.

“Look at Major League Baseball. They’re the prime example of not changing anything. I don’t know. I think that’s the history of the sport. I think we have to preserve the history.”

Q: I was up at your shop earlier. I look at the guys on the No. 10 car. 30 years, Ricky Davis. Julian Robertson has been there for over 30 years, one of the first guys that worked for you. Barry Wanser has been there forever. It really seems that keeping these guys together, even on other cars _ No. 9 (Scott Dixon) has had Mike Hull and the engineering staff. How big of a role does all of that play in the tremendous domination the No. 10 car’s enjoyed the last couple of years?

GANASSI: “We went for a lot of years where the No. 10 car didn’t have any success. But having said that, you’re stating the obvious that there’s a lot of speed in tenure. I’ve said that before, I’ll say it again. Having these guys around, understanding how we work, how we get things done, again how to work with each other, it all plays together to make a team.

“It takes a team to win these days. It takes everybody and everything to do it the way we do it. I don’t know how other teams do it. Way we do it, it takes everybody and everything. Having those guys around with those years of experience unquestionably adds to our success from time to time.”

Q: In a lot of ways, Dario Franchitti on the staff is like a hidden secret, right?

GANASSI: “Yeah, call Dario what you want, the sporting director. They have these fancy names nowadays. I just thought he was a good guy to talk to the other drivers, help them out a little bit. Seems to be working, yeah.”

Q: I want to ask about the Milwaukee Mile event. Other than the end result, which wasn’t what you wanted, talk about the experience and how you felt about the venue and the crowd.

GANASSI: “Yeah, looked like a great crowd. I recognize those grandstands from a place called Chicago Motor Speedway. I think I bought those grandstands once. No, I think they’ve obviously done a great job there. They’ve obviously resurrected a historical event on the calendar. Seems to be running better. I’m glad to be there.

“I don’t know that I want a steady diet of short tracks. I think to sprinkle a few in here and there is OK, yeah.”

Q: As you prep for Nashville, focus is there, when do you take a step back and look at the entirety of the season, what’s the full accomplishment?

GANASSI: “Yeah, I mean, we begin to do that in the off-season. Obviously, we’re focused right now on Nashville. We want to go win that race. We’ll talk about the championship certainly in off-season, celebrate it the right way. I couldn’t be more proud of my team. I couldn’t be more proud of Palou.

“Let me point out one thing I pointed out the other day. It wasn’t that long ago in motor racing, I remember in 1997 or ’98 with Zanardi, we had won the championship before the end of the year. We went to Australia was the last race of the season in there somewhere. I remember our engineer Morris Nunn was amazed that Zanardi had the ability to want to go out and win even though he’d already won the championship.

“For young people today, that seems like an obvious thing maybe, but it wasn’t that many years ago that it wasn’t so obvious. Teams at the end of the year, they almost pulled their cars off the track because they didn’t want to crash them at the end of the year when there were no points to gain or no championship to win.

“You have that on one end to today where we have Alex. I walked up to him on Friday night at Milwaukee. I said, ‘What do you think about this weekend?’

He said, ‘What do I think about it? I think we want to win.’

“That’s a great thing for a guy to say after winning a championship already. I think there’s a lot to be said for that. It’s not a new phenomenon for us, but it’s certainly something that not that many years ago was a different take, if you will.”

Q: Alex has been synonymous this season with some of the greats. He’s up there with Scott Dixon, Mario Andretti, et cetera. He won the championship. His next goal was to close down the season at least with a double-digit win. Now that Alex is really close to tying up with Mario Andretti’s nine-win streak, how do you assess his finish and his name up there with some of the INDYCAR greats?

GANASSI: “Yes, certainly in modern times, his name’s right there, right there with everybody certainly in modern times, whether it’s Dixon, Zanardi, Vasser, our guys and champions of other ones. Again, I don’t know how you compare to Mario, OK? Mario to me is still a great champion. Everyone wants to look and say, ‘These guys won that many races, they won this or that.’

“One of the things that still stands out to me with Mario that I have a lot of respect for was his versatility, whether winning Daytona, Pikes Peak, all these different things he won, Sprint Car races, Dirt Car races.

“It goes back to our earlier conversation, you can only compare these guys in the years they’re in to other great drivers they’re competing directly against. When you start skipping over decades of rule changes and car changes…

“Remember, I think it’s interesting to point out, it wasn’t until the 1980s that they even closed the pits on a yellow flag in INDYCAR racing. That’s a huge difference that racing makes, that the competitors make. You have to factor all that in when you talk about number of wins that a driver has.

“Hey, I just feel fortunate to be in the sport. I feel fortunate to know a lot of champions, have known a lot of champions. I like what they represent, what they all represent, what all the champions represent to me and to people like Alex. They all have an understanding of that.

“You’ll never be able to compare how Alex stacks up against A.J. Foyt or Mario or Parnelli Jones, any of these guys. We’ll never know. We can always talk about it. That’s the great thing about sports. That’s what makes bench racing so much fun.”

Q: You were talking about Alex on short-ovals. From the outside it definitely looks like Alex has taken a significant step on short-ovals. Have you noticed any drastic changes in him or has it just been small gains? Where else do you think he can improve?

GANASSI: “Boy, I don’t know. Let’s see, there were about two or three questions there. Could I see any areas he can improve? Boy, I don’t know. I’m the last guy to tell him where he needs to improve. He seems to be doing a good job of that himself.

“In terms of when I look back on the year, yeah, obviously the short-ovals were big. Indianapolis was big. I remember the talk in the beginning of the year was, ‘Yeah, Palou is great, he won these championships, but he hasn’t won on an oval.’ Dispelled that rumor this year, that poor fact, so…he knows.”

Q: The theme has always been at Ganassi ‘One team, one focus, one team’. Looking at this year and looking at the years leading into this year, how important has the Dixon factor been in helping Alex achieve some of what he’s actually achieved?

GANASSI: “Yeah, no question. No question that Scott’s helped Palou’s career. No question. They sit in the same room. They talk about the same setups. Obviously, I don’t think they drive exactly the same car. I can tell you that Alex will be the first to tell you that he learned a lot from Scott Dixon, and vice-versa, yeah. Great teammates.”

Q: Looking at that going into this final race, how significant is it to try and keep Dixon as high up in that championship status as you can, but not necessarily give Alex missing out on the chance of getting that extra win?

GANASSI: “Good question. Yeah, I don’t know. I can tell you this. Palou is going to be there to win the race. Dixon is going to be there to win the race. If it comes down to the end of the race, I can tell you that I’m not going to play God and tell which one to go where, OK? I think that’s very dangerous to do.

“I just tell them Rule No. 1 is don’t hit each other, and Rule No. 2, don’t forget Rule No. 1. Yeah, we’d like to keep Dixon as high up in the points as we can (currently third). We’d also like to see Palou get a record of some sort. That would be a nice feather in our cap. We’re just here to win the race with whoever wins it. Kyffin can win it, as well.”

Q: You are maybe more than a boss for Alex, Alex told to me. If Alex were to move to Formula 1 one day, do you think he would be as happy as he is in this team and in this series?

GANASSI: “I don’t know. I would hope so. I mean, I think Alex is more like a brother to me than anything else. Like I said earlier, I take him for his word what he says to me. I mean, I don’t know that the draw there is what it used to be when we were growing up. There’s two or three coveted seats there. Outside of that, I wouldn’t want to see him go to be a No. 2 driver anywhere.

“I don’t stop people from doing those kind of things. Yeah, I focus on what we do. I mean, I think it’s not too long…every time I get a call from a Formula 1 driver, I don’t call the press up and say, ‘I got a phone call from somebody, they want to come drive INDYCARs.’ We get calls all the time from Formula 1 drivers.

“They go this way, that way. I don’t think it’s as interesting a thing as it used to be, the draw one way or the other for that matter. I think they’re both very specialized anymore. I don’t know how you go from winning the biggest race in the world to one that’s not. I don’t know.”

Q: How have your emotions and the feelings of Alex’s and your successes compared to what you’ve experienced before?

GANASSI: “Yeah, I think back to when I was a kid, I just wanted to race cars. You start racing cars, you start having success, you want to have more success, so you work harder at it. But my emotions today for winning races are more than they used to be because I think now, at my age, I appreciate them even more than maybe I did when I was in my 20s and 30s. Yeah, I appreciate them even more, so…I guess my emotions would follow that.”

Q: In a hypothetical world, where Alex does depart and make the move to Formula 1, how would you see him doing?

GANASSI: “I don’t want to speak. You know what, I have enough trouble running my business every day in the real world that I can’t speak to the hypothetical world.”

Q: With the recent success for you and the team, what do you think the next few years will look like?

GANASSI: “Like I said earlier, he hasn’t hit the ceiling yet. You’d have to say who would be the odds-on favorite for next year’s Indy 500 at this point? If you go to Las Vegas and look at the odds for the 2026 Indy 500 _ I haven’t seen them _ but I would bet that Palou is the favorite already.”

Q: One individual within your team, Jason York, was inducted in the Californian Motorsport Hall of Fame recently. What does that mean to you as a boss, to have one of your engineers inducted into a Hall of Fame?

GANASSI: “It’s like having your children recognized in a Hall of Fame. It’s no different. It’s the same thing. I mean, it’s huge. It’s huge to have them recognized in the sport, being obviously voted in by people outside my immediate circle. That’s nothing but a feather in our team’s hat, another feather in our team’s hat. A lot of times those type of accolades go unnoticed to the wider press. I’m glad you brought that up.”