Alex Palou, Ganassi Portland, IndyCar, 2025

Red Bull is targeting IndyCar champion Alex Palou to join its Formula 1 team in 2026, according to a report in the USA.

The Indianapolis Star claims Red Bull wants to lure Palou away from the series to join Max Verstappen next year. Such a move would leave Verstappen’s current team mate Yuki Tsunoda without a drive.

Palou has been a revelation since he joined IndyCar with the Coyne squad in 2020. He joined powerhouse team Ganassi the following year and won five races on his way to the title. Although he slipped to fifth the following year, he won the next three championships in a row.

His latest victory was the most emphatic yet. Palou won five of the first six rounds this year in the highly competitive, spec-chassis series. He clinched the title with two rounds to spare, an unusual achievement in a championship which is usually decided at the final round.

Formula 1 drivers' pre-season photograph, Albert Park, Melbourne, 2025
2026 F1 drivers and teams

Palou has come close to leaving Ganassi and moving into F1 before. During 2022 Palou announced he would not stay at Ganassi while McLaren said he would join their team.

The row was eventually resolved with Palou staying at Ganassi’s IndyCar team. Although he tested McLaren’s F1 car and appeared for them in an official practice session during the 2022 United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, he never joined their F1 squad. McLaren later took Palou to court over his decision not to drive for them.

Palou’s growing domination of IndyCar has prompted speculation he could switch disciplines. A move in 2026 would give him two opportunities to race in front of his home crowd, in the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya and the Spanish Grand Prix at its new home on a street track in Madrid.

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He would be the latest in a series of team mates for Verstappen at Red Bull. Since Daniel Ricciardo left at the end of 2018 the team has hired and fired Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon, Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson. The latter made way for Tsunoda after starting just two rounds for Red Bull at the beginning of the year.

Palou would join two other Spanish drivers in F1, Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz Jnr. Following Palou’s victory in the Indianapolis 500 earlier this year Sainz said “someone that is capable of winning the Indy 500, he at least should at some point be given the chance to show what he can do in Formula 1.”

Video: Palou clinches 2025 IndyCar title

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