The Formula 1 silly season hasn’t silly seasoned as much as it should this year. Only a couple of major moves being spoken about that include that of Daniel Ricciardo‘s to AlphaTauri and Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari. While the former has gone through, the latter has been quashed. Otherwise, it’s been pretty quiet. To make up for the lack of transfer action in F1, a $63 million worth IndyCar team (as reported by Forbes) has given fans a good dose of drama at the cost of McLaren‘s Zak Brown.
Alex Palou, the current IndyCar championship leader, was between teams for the 2024 season. The two teams are his current one – Chip Ganassi Racing and the other is Zak Brown‘s Arrow McLaren. Brown was 100% sure that Palou will be joining them in 2024 and had even paid him his salary in advance. But Lo-and-behold! Karma has come to bite Brown one full year later. Palou has denied joining the Papaya team like Piastri did to Alpine before joining McLaren. As the saying goes – What goes around comes around.
Thank you Indycar for stepping up and filling the Motorsports Drama void during summer shutdown pic.twitter.com/X7k9JnTif4
— Dan – EngineMode11 (@EngineMode11) August 12, 2023
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Chip Ganassi, who doesn’t often comment on contractual agreements, has come full guns blazing against Brown. Part of Ganassi’s statement read, “Alex Palou has been part of our team and under contract since the 2021 season. It is the interference of that contract from McLaren that began this process and ironically, they are playing the victim. Simply stated, the position of McLaren INDYCAR regarding our driver is inaccurate and wrong; he remains under contract with CGR.”
With this statement, Ganassi not only sealed Brown’s fate but also gave fans a reason for snapping out of their racing action-devoid slump.
Fans thank Chip Ganassi and Alex Palou for serving Zak Brown right and giving quality drama in the otherwise dull F1 summer break
For a period that has earned the name ‘Silly season’ because of silly driver contract rumors, no such thing has taken place in 2023. However, this time, the yearly dose of silliness for F1 fans has come from another motorsport. Neither did Ganassi hold back nor did he mince his words and Twitteratis are all for it.
From calling Palou “Thanos of the McLaren Extended Universe” to labeling Brown “nothing but a marketing mogul,” a combination of compliments, insults, and humor found their way on Twitter.
alex palou saw we were in a f1 silly season drought, had the opportunity to do the silliest thing ever, and absolutely did it
— nini (@SCUDERIAFEMBOY) August 12, 2023
Alex Palou is the Thanos of the McLaren Extended Universe https://t.co/grAVVwYPyh
— Elizabeth Blackstock (@eliz_blackstock) August 11, 2023
Alex Palou while his team figures out where the fuck he’ll be next year https://t.co/NlZU9FhWqb pic.twitter.com/2U339mQItz
— AG⁴ (@formulaAG4) August 12, 2023
Ganassi was hailed for exposing the sly McLaren tactics to poach their world champion.
Woof.
Chip Ganassi is not holding back on this one.#IndyCar pic.twitter.com/OU6EK5U5th
— Christopher DeHarde (@CDeHarde) August 12, 2023
if im chip ganassi id post “Lol” and log off
— Alex (@newgayden) August 11, 2023
Brown even had his entire style of conducting business questioned, with hundreds of thousands of dollars being flushed down the drain.
zak brown getting played by alex palou there are tears streaming down my face and i can’t stop smiling pic.twitter.com/MsBtSchO4h
— elle 🐇 (@L3CL3RCS) August 11, 2023
Zak Brown once again proving that he’s nothing but a marketing mogul and can’t run a motorsport giant like McLaren for shit. Sad state of affairs for one of the titans of motorsport. #AlexPalou #Indycar #ChipGanassi https://t.co/3adwQVdJ0A
— Kurtis Prosser (@kurtisssprosser) August 12, 2023
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So Zak Brown has wasted millions of dollars in salaries and investments this year towards both Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Palou and neither is actually driving for him.
No one does business or driver management quite like Zak Brown and that’s not a compliment. pic.twitter.com/q0n5CB8ZDy
— Ro (@racingwithro) August 12, 2023
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Just as things had started looking up for Brown’s F1 team, he self-sabotaged his happiness to mess things up elsewhere. Now, McLaren finds itself devoid of Palou, a world champion, potentially being on their team and probably 6-figure worth of money.
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