Álex Palou has called for the NTT IndyCar Series to be given more importance when it comes to awarding Superlicence points to race in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship on the back of the failure of Colton Herta making the switch to F1 in 2023.
Herta is a renowned race winner and frontrunner in IndyCar but has not acquired enough points to qualify for a Superlicence, meaning he was unable to take up the offer to race for Scuderia AlphaTauri in 2023, a seat that went eventually to Nyck de Vries.
Palou, who has already earned enough points to earn himself a Superlicence thanks to winning the IndyCar title with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021 and is a member of the McLaren F1 Team reserve driver rota, insists his current championship offers tough competition and is not a junior series, so its drivers should be given a better chance of earning Superlicence points.
“First of all, I have my super license, so I don’t care what’s going on! It’s easy for me to say,” said Palou jokingly to the F1 Nation podcast as quoted by racingnews365.com.
“But, to be honest, I think IndyCar is such a tough competition. I invite everybody to follow closely IndyCar and IndyCar drivers and how close the racing is, to see if we deserve more points or not.
“It’s a professional series, it’s not a junior series. I’m not saying that we should have priority over other series, but maybe we should get a little bit more importance.”
Palou reckons that Herta, who races for Andretti Autosport, has everything needed to be competitive in Formula 1, but the fact that someone with that much talent is unable to earn a Superlicence shows that the IndyCar championship is underappreciated.
“Colton Herta won four or five races in IndyCar, so it’s not like he won one by luck, strategy or whatever,” said Palou. “He won because he’s fast.
“I think he could be a really good F1 driver, and there [were] several teams in F1 that were willing to give him a chance, and he’s not in the F1 paddock now as a driver because of the points.
“I don’t think they should have [broken] the rules [to give Herta a super licence], but maybe they should have changed it for the future a little bit and make it easier for good IndyCar drivers to come to F1, but we’ll see.”