Ganassi will back Palu’s bid for the IndyCar title despite the contract dispute

Ganassi drivers Scott Dixon, Marcus Ericsson and Palu are currently second, third and fifth respectively in the standings, with Palu just 33 points behind Penske driver Will Power.

With more than 150 points over the past three rounds, Palu still has high hopes of defending the IndyCar crown he earned with Ganassi in 2021.

understanding: Why the 2022 IndyCar title battle is again Penske vs. Ganassi

However, CGR believes Palu breached the terms of his contract by signing with McLaren for 2023, at a time when it still had the right to pick him up. Ganassi is taking Palu to court in this case.

Despite this, CGR boss Mike Hull insists the team will not favor Dixon and Eriksson over Paul as they each look to secure Ganassi’s 15th IndyCar title since 1996.

Asked if Palu will get as much attention over the next three races as Dixon and Eriksson, Hull told Autosport: “Yes, absolutely, and that’s a very honest answer.

“We have a driver of tremendous talent driving the #10 car [Palou] and we have an amazing sponsor behind this car in NTT [IndyCar’s title sponsor] and the American Legion was also a major part of this machine.

“We have a lot to gain from Alex Palau winning races and we honestly don’t care [which car succeeds].

“We’re winning races and we’re very happy to have Alex driving one of our cars. Yes, there were some things that confused a lot of people, but guess what this team does.

“We’re just racing cars, and having the best drivers in your cars helps you win races, and having the best drivers working together helps you win more races and championships.

“It’s that simple for us. Whatever happens next with Alex and who he stands for, I have a lot of respect for what he’s done for us. That won’t change.”

Hull also confirmed that there had been no change in the debriefing room between the four Ganassi drivers and their respective race engineers.

“From our point of view, you have to have a free exchange of information to set your direction in terms of installation,” he said.

“Let’s say Scott and Alex have a conversation about how they’re driving the first turn in Nashville. They approach it completely differently, but they read the racetrack the same way, and that helps them understand much better, along with their engineers, what they need to do with their cars to move around the racetrack.

“It’s the same when we had two drivers, three drivers and now four drivers. Scott, Alex, Marcus, Jimmy [Johnson] – they continue to work well together to help understand how you create speed on the racetrack, and they don’t hold anything back.

“Their handling styles are not necessarily the same – one driver may be more comfortable with a front axle, another with a rear axle – but they end up operating at the same speed.

“I mean, you look back to when we had Dario [Franchitti] and Scott, they drove very, very differently, but they drove at the same speed. And the way they did that was they helped each other improve and they helped each other fine-tune their cars and they had great success.”