INDIANAPOLIS — When the 2025 IndyCar season ended, Alex Palou had never watched an Indiana football game. But before Indiana’s third game of the 2025 season against Indiana State, one of Palou’s Zionsville neighbors invited the driver to watch a game.
That neighbor warned Palou that Indiana would be special, and he was right. Soon, Palou was on the bandwagon.
Indiana, like Palou, dominated in 2025. In Palou’s first year watching the Hoosiers, they won all 16 of their games en route to the first national championship in program history. In October 2025, Palou took his first trip to Bloomington, where he saw Indiana dismantle UCLA 56-6.
Palou went from having one of the best IndyCar seasons ever in 2025 – when he won eight races – to watching his new favorite football team do the same.
“I don't consider myself an expert, but I like it,” Palou told IndyStar between takes of his promotional video with Indiana’s Hoosier the Bison. “I like to follow it, I like to be with some friends during the weekend and follow the teams and the games. So yeah, I love it. I have such a great time. And I have to say, last year, that was my first college game – it was the most fun I've ever had at a sports event.”
Indiana hasn’t lost a game since Palou started watching, and Indiana coach Curt Cignetti happens to be from the Pittsburgh area, like Palou’s team owner Chip Ganassi. On Saturday, the fourth-ranked Hoosiers host No. 5 Ohio State for their biggest regular-season game in history, and the five-time IndyCar champion has a lot riding on the game.
Alex Palou to go for a different ‘500’
It didn’t take long for the extremely competitive Palou to turn his IU fandom into trash talk. When IU played Ohio State in last year’s Big Ten championship, Palou let Meyer Shank Racing co-owner Mike Shank – a Columbus, Ohio, native – have it.
The banter between Palou and Shank quickly turned into a bet that saw Palou win $200 when the Hoosiers won 13–10 in Lucas Oil Stadium. On Sept. 10, Palou showed up to his day of oval testing for IndyCar’s new IR28 chassis in an IU hat and challenged Shank and driver Graham Rahal – another Columbus native – to “keep it on” with the bets.
Shank quickly agreed.
Shank and Palou – who raced for MSR in select IMSA endurance rounds the past two years – upped the bet to be $250. When Ohio State led Texas 23-3 after three quarters on Sept. 12, Shank wanted to double it.
“I drank too much last week, and we were up by 20 points,” Shank said on Sept. 18. “And I literally texted him, I said, ‘I'll go 500 right now.’ And he said, ‘You're an idiot.’”
After Texas staged a fourth-quarter comeback to win 24-23, Palou generously offered to decrease the bet back to $250, but Shank decided to keep it at $500. On Saturday, more than just bragging rights will be on the line between IndyCar’s best driver and one of its most outgoing team owners.
“I'm confident,” Palou said. “My neighbor – I told him about it – he's a bit more nervous. But I'm excited. I mean, we (Indiana) started the season again super strong, and I think Ohio (State) didn't start as good as us.”
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Before Palou’s $500 fate is determined, he’ll get the full IU pregame experience.
A new IU football tradition
After how last Indiana season went, Palou knew he wanted to get back to Bloomington for a game. Hours after the IndyCar season ended on Sept. 6, Palou saw Fox Sports CEO (and IU alum) Eric Shanks at IndyCar’s Victory Lap banquet and asked if Shanks could help him get into the Ohio State game. Shanks had a better idea.
Indiana had begun using a retired Panoz Indy car to welcome Hoosier the Bison on the field in the second year of the mascot’s return for the first time since 1969. The Hoosiers’ season opener against North Texas was a day before the IndyCar finale, and Shanks saw a chance to promote Palou and IndyCar at the game.
“I asked Eric Shanks directly if I could go and then he was like, ‘Yeah,’” Palou said. “And he was like, ‘Hey, it would be nice if you drove the Indy car there.’ I was like, ‘Absolutely.’”
After Hoosier the Bison piloted the car onto the field for IU’s first four home games, Palou will do so Saturday. He’ll be the first of what IU hopes is a tradition of IU-adjacent celebrities driving the now-electric car pregame, the school confirmed to IndyStar.
The collaboration continues the relationship IndyCar and IU have developed in recent years. IU began partnering with IndyCar in 2024 before Cignetti’s first season, with a current IndyCar-branded Dallara DW12 chassis being shipped to Bloomington for photoshoots with recruits.
This year, Cignetti became just the second football coach to drive the pace car at the Indianapolis 500. Cignetti said he “said no to everything except for the Indy 500” when asked for public appearances this offseason.
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Now with Palou – IndyCar’s defining driver of the 2020s – being on the IU train, the relationship between the school and series has strengthened. It has also given Fox – which owns one-third of IndyCar and is one of the Big Ten’s three television partners – an opportunity to promote Palou and IndyCar. Palou will make another appearance on Fox’s "Big Noon Kickoff" pregame show after he poured milk on Hoosier the Bison before the UCLA game last year.
Becoming an IU fan is just part of the puzzle for Palou, who turns 30 in April. The man who spent his early years in IndyCar attempting to launch a Formula One career is now embracing being a Hoosier.
How Alex Palou has made Indiana home through sports
Palou has immersed himself in the sports culture of the country and state he has lived in since 2020, when he was just 22 years old. Palou has attended multiple Colts games, including the team’s home opener in September. He wore a Tyrese Haliburton Pacers jersey at the Indy 500 parade in 2025, a day before he won the race and attended the Pacers’ playoff game that night.
“I love it. I have such a great time doing it and just going and feeling so welcome,” Palou said of attending Indiana sporting events. “I would go anyways, but I feel like it makes me even more excited when they are excited to have me. So it's been cool.”
Watching Indiana in 2025 not only made Palou a fan of the Hoosiers, but of American football as a whole. He became such a fan that he went on to win Chip Ganassi Racing’s fantasy football league in 2025 (and is second in the league at 3-2 this year).
Now, American football has become the Spaniard’s favorite non-racing sport. Despite soccer’s popularity in Spain (the country just won the men’s FIFA World Cup), Palou was never a huge fan of it, in part because he “was so bad in school.”
“I love how easy it is to follow American football,” he said. “Once you get it, like once you know more or less how it works, it's so easy and you have breaks kind of in between plays. You don't have to be 90 minutes (watching) the TV without missing anything.”
Another element of football that is more intriguing to Palou than soccer is the friendliness of it. Football fans don’t get as hostile as European soccer fans, and Palou enjoys the cordial element that comes with being a fan despite the rivalries that exist in football.
“It kind of brings everybody together a little bit,” Palou said. “I feel like people that give shit to each other, it's in a good way, actually. It's never aggressive. Like with Shank, it's so cool that we have bets and we just have fun with our teams going against each other. So yeah, I like it.”
Palou has truly made Indiana his home, and his interest in North American sports has played a large role in doing so. He and his wife, Esther, expect to welcome their second child in the Indy area in early February.
Despite not being an Indiana (or American) native, Palou has ingrained himself in the state’s sports culture. As the Hoosiers prepare for the biggest game in Memorial Stadium history this weekend, they’ll have IndyCar’s best on their side.
Zion Brown is IndyStar's motorsports reporter. Follow him at @z10nbr0wn. Get IndyStar's motor sports coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Motor Sports newsletter. Subscribe to the YouTube channel IndyStar TV: IndyCar for a behind-the-scenes look at IndyCar and expert analysis.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana football won over celebrity superfan who is a 5-time champion, starting new tradition