Alex Palou's $64B-worth sponsor pushing IndyCar for Mexico race with Pato O'Ward face-off expected

Alex Palou won the 2025 IndyCar championship and was presented with the Astor Cup at the season finale at the Nashville Superspeedway. The Spaniard’s primary sponsor, DHL Express’ CEO, came out after the IndyCar finale and revealed pushing the series for a race in Mexico.

DHL’s long-term partnership with Andretti Global ended after the 2023 season, and the $64 billion brand signed with Chip Ganassi Racing's #10 Honda entry to become Alex Palou’s primary sponsor starting in 2024. The partnership continued this year as the Spaniard’s #10 DHL dominated.

With IndyCar bringing in FOX as the exclusive broadcaster ahead of the season, the American open-wheel racing series reached a greater audience. DHL’s CEO Mike Parra was asked about the Alex Palou promo, making him the face of FOX promotion, as well as DHL reaching a new audience.

109th Running Of The Indianapolis 500 - Source: Getty

Mike Parra spoke about how the 2025 IndyCar season was the biggest one for them in 15 years, with a lot of people noticing the #10 DHL Honda driven by Alex Palou. He spoke about the global audience tuning in and detailed pushing IndyCar to race in Mexico. He said,

“It's the first time that we've now got a global audience that's tuning in. Alex in Spain is growing, getting a lot of media attention there as well. I look forward to something happening next year, which I've been pitching to Mark Miles and the team for a long time, and that is that we're going to Mexico. That is absolutely exciting for someone like myself.”

Alex Palou’s primary sponsor expects to face off against home hero Pato O'Ward at the Mexican IndyCar race in the future, as he added,

“We have a big group of people there in that marketplace. I look forward to seeing a sea of yellow in Mexico. I'm sure we're going to be competing with Pato there from that perspective. It's been a great year for us.”

Penske Entertainment has been in talks with Mexico GP race officials for a year now and has made advancements. The race is expected to be on the calendar for the 2026 season.

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Alex Palou reflects on the tire failure at the 2025 IndyCar race at Nashville Superspeedway

Alex Palou started the IndyCar finale in P4 and soon made his way up to P2 behind Pato O'Ward. However, 50-odd laps into the race, Palou suffered a tire failure but somehow managed to keep the car out of the wall. With another driver pitting soon after him and taking precautionary measures, the Spaniard only lost a few places. Speaking about the failure, Palou said,

“I was lucky enough that it started happening at the entry of the corner, so I was able to feel it, slow down a little bit. Yeah, I was very lucky that it didn't blow off in the middle of the corner. It waited until the exit. I thought that I was going to end up in the wall.”

“Obviously I thought we were going to lose a lot of places. But I think we were lucky enough that we were able to get a really fast pit stop, even though that the tire was flat, get really good out-laps and fast laps at the beginning before people started pitting,” added Palou

Alex Palou finished the race in P2 after overtaking Scott McLaughlin after the final restart, and keeping the #2 Team Penske driver under pressure until the chequered flag.