36 Hours From Victory: Up Close With IndyCar Champ Alex Palou

Alex Palou wins, has made an IndyCar race.

Yeah, the flag baby.

You're an Indy winner.

Awesome, man.

Great, great job everybody.

For a young man who never had a big backer coming up.

He raced in Japan, you raced in Europe.

Can you believe at this moment already, you're an IndyCar winner?

It's crazy.

Yeah, it's crazy but it's because of this team.

This team is amazing.

Honda gave us a good engine, Seji on on the car and Chip Ganassi Racing, come on, what else can I ask for?

Drivers of the Alex Palou has been crowned as your 2021 NTT Indy Car Series champion.

What's up, guys?

Lesley Robbins here for Young Hollywood.

The 2021 IndyCar Series Championship comes down to this race right here.

It's the Grand Prix of Long Beach and we are bringing you all the exclusive behind the scenes action.

So Alex, I don't want to jinx anything but you are the points leader going into the race today and this is what, your second full-time year here.

Yeah.

Congratulations, but I'm not jinxing anything.

This is a nice place to be leading into the race.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, it's been a great season so far.

Obviously, I'm super happy and and proud of being uh contending for the championship on on the second year and first year with Chip Ganassi Racing.

But yeah, we had some, some good races, some good results and we just need to finish it now.

Now, what goes into finishing it?

What's the secret sauce to all of that?

Secret sauce to all that is that, um, we did a really good job throughout all the season like always.

Um, we we've been scoring eight podiums so far.

Um, but now it's a time to really do it, right?

Like we don't really need to finish on the podium, but uh I think we need a top 10 to really seal the the championship but it's 28 cars this weekend.

So it's not done yet.

And and yeah, that's that's why I mean we need to finish it.

Um because we're proud and happy of what we've accomplished it so far but uh we wanna win this championship.

I'm so happy for you.

That's good.

Yeah, it's it's gonna be my first time at Long Beach which makes the season finale a bit harder to be honest.

But um, but the good thing is that we have two practices and nowadays with the simulator work that we can do before uh every weekend.

I think we're ready enough to to battle for it.

But yeah, first time here, it's not gonna be easy.

So given the fact we are in Long Beach, this is your first time here, you're at the race closest to Hollywood.

So, with Hollywood comes celebrities and stars.

Who do you want in the stands and who do you want to meet at the race?

That's super cool that we're racing so close to Hollywood.

Um, I would like to meet The Rock.

Um that would, Dwayne Johnson.

Exactly.

I would love to meet any celebrity and just to show them like really close to what we do.

Um to show them the steering wheel, where do we sit?

I think to show more the insights, um, I think they would love it and and for sure I would love him to to enjoy about the race.

Well, I'll look into The Rock coming but I'm here now, so I want you to take me inside and show me around.

Of course.

Let's do it.

I'll show you.

Let's do it.

Okay.

These are the trucks, the trailers.

Uh, we have six connected trailers all connected inside, as you can see, like you can just walk from one to each other and we have the driver lounges, um, the mechanics prepare here like right here, they can prepare the gearboxes, the diffs, so they change the setup of the car right here.

Uh, we have some spare parts here.

Um, we can see three front wings, two rear wings, just in case.

Um, so they are part of my cars, but um hopefully we don't use them.

But um, we we can walk now to the other areas.

Um that's where the engineers sit and that's yeah, also a part of the magic of this team, I think.

Let's see it.

Let's see it.

Okay.

Alright.

Yeah, so as as we're traveling, uh from track to track, we have to keep all the equipment on the trailers.

So we have, uh all the stuff that the mechanics need to to put the cars together.

We have, I think close to like four cars complete in parts in in all these trailers.

And yeah, there's a lot of um of work going on with the mechanics and the cars, uh from race to race.

Nice, let's go room to room.

Let's go room to room.

So now we're in a bigger area where the good stuff happens.

Yeah, obviously we need to keep uh food for everybody for the team just to keep on performing, but yeah, I think this is the most important trailer just because that's where we get the energy and and we keep on working.

And I know something about you.

You own a coffee shop in Spain with your girlfriend.

Yeah, uh so it's been three years now.

It's called Coffee and Greens.

Uh the idea was to make coffee and just salads and stuff.

We never made any salad, but uh it kept on like a small coffee shop but um yeah, it's a lovely, a lovely project that we started together without knowing anything about business, coffee or anything like that.

Well, I think it'd be lovely if you and I have some coffee in your trailer.

We can try.

I mean, it's not the best coffee but at least it's coffee, so it counts.

That's right.

Let's go.

Wait, here's the question.

How good are you at making coffee?

I'm good but we don't have milk steamer here, so I cannot really make you.

Okay, I'll hold this for you.

Okay.

Okay, well, since we're talking about food and we're standing in your makeshift kitchen.

Yeah.

I heard a rumor about you that you enjoy, it's not even a rumor, you enjoy fried chicken after your big wins.

Of course, that's that's the truth.

Where is fried chicken in all of this?

95% of the athletes or maybe 99% of the athletes after they do the competition and everything goes well or bad, they want some bad food.

I don't know why.

I think it's because we prepare so much for the moment and we just take care of it that once we're done, we just we can have like a cheat meal, right?

So that's why we do fried chicken.

Ross goes, chicken and waffles, have you been there?

No.

Okay.

That's a good place.

That's incredible.

That's what's famous in LA and Hollywood.

Let's do it.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Alright, before you go, I need to show you my, my special place.

It's the lounge, it's where I prepare myself before going out on track and I think yeah, it's a good place.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Okay.

So, this is the lounge I share with my teammate Marcus.

Uh, he's a bit crazy.

He puts some music before the races.

I'm more of like a calm guy, but uh yeah, this is the place I sit here on this part.

I have here my trophy from last weekend at Portland.

Oh.

Second place.

Very nice.

Yes, second place.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Now, I do want to talk about another second place that you came in.

Okay.

Uh, you came in second at the most recent Indy 500.

Yeah.

And my dear friend who I adore, Young Hollywood adores, Helio Castroneves won four times now.

His fourth time winning.

I have to tell you, I'm glad you came in second.

I liked that because I didn't want to take that win away from Helio.

Yeah, that's okay.

That's okay.

I have to say that's okay because that was what I felt on the atmosphere after the race.

Um when Helio won, everybody was super happy and and when I watched the race afterwards, I was, everybody was cheering for me but also they wanted Helio to get the fourth one.

I think it's super special and it was only my second year in the in the 500, right?

So people was like, okay, he'll get him, uh he'll get them, uh next time.

So, it's fine.

I learned a lot with Helio there.

Uh it was a good battle and and I think it was good to get there second because I learn a lot more finishing second than first and yeah, we'll try next, uh next year to get them.

So, talk about your time so far with IndyCar and Chip Ganassi Racing.

How's it going?

Yeah, it's amazing.

It was a dream for me, um from Europe to to come here in America and and race IndyCars.

It's, it's a really big championship, like we do 17, 18, 15 races depends.

Uh with COVID now it's been a bit hard but uh um yeah, I think it's it's one of the most competitive, uh championships out there.

And and being part of Chip Ganassi Racing is the best thing.

Like they gave me the opportunity this year to fight for a championship and hopefully we can do it for many, many years.

Okay, I have to ask you the biggest question of all.

Where is the better fried chicken located?

Europe or America?

That's not even a question.

Come on.

In America, it's much, much better.

Yeah, fried chicken in America is the best.

Maybe you'll have really, really good fried chicken from America even better than you've had Sunday night.

That's a plan.

We'll try and get that.

And Alex Palou, he's your first time champion!

Thank you so much.

Thank you.