Palou: Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo “A Different Animal” to Indy Car

Three-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou might be a fish out of water this weekend in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, but the Spaniard will be on very familiar ground at the Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS.

After winning the last two May IndyCar races on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for Chip Ganassi Racing, Palou will race in the Intercontinental GT Challenge/Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season finale on Saturday for Lone Star Racing.

It will be his first race in a GT3 car since the 2019 SUPER GT season finale.

“It’s very different to what I’m used to,” Palou said. “Like visibility wise, [it] was the worst to get used to.

“And then speeds and the corners, they feel different than the Indy car, like you cannot go flat in some areas where on the Indy car it’s like almost straight.

“But, yeah, it was good. Felt good, ran some laps, had some issues as always on a test day, but it was great.”

That time gap from his last GT3 race won’t bother Palou, but the driving style completely changes from a mid-engined Indy car to a front-engined Mercedes.

The cars have very drivetrain layouts, the Mercedes weighs 800 kg more than the Indy car and it has driver aids like ABS and power steering which are forbidden in IndyCar Series competition.

“With the IndyCar you rotate the car a lot with the brakes,” Palou said.

“Here you cannot do [that], like you don’t have that downforce to trail brake and to try and carry those brakes to just make the front to be nose down.

“Here with the ABS and I would say the amount of weight you have in the car, you don’t have that much mechanical [grip] or downforce, so you cannot really carry that much speed.

“It’s more about braking late and concentrating on exit while in the car with so much downforce and so much grip. You focus on rolling a lot of speed, so completely different.”

Palou has raced sparingly in sports cars over the last few years.

The 2023 Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter has competed in the last two Rolex 24 at Daytona events in the GTP class and in the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans in the Hypercar ranks.

However, that still provides a challenge because of the differences between the Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh car and GT3 machinery.

“I would say it’s a lot closer in GT3, which I’m not as used to now,” Palou said. “Like five years ago I was used to being so close and just following so closely and being so consistent and lungeing.

“I think in GTP it’s more like you’re waiting and then suddenly you’d lunge. But you can’t do a big brake zone because you don’t have ABS.

“Here, everybody brakes at the same place because you have ABS, so you just wait there. It’s not tough to adapt how to drive, but maybe how to race. It’s a different animal.”

Palou’s open wheel experience on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course gives him a wealth of knowledge to draw upon heading into qualifying and Saturday’s race.

In ten races on the IMS road course, Palou has two wins, three podiums and six top tens.