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Closing statements made as court considers McLaren claims against Palou

The closing statements in the McLaren IndyCar vs Alex Palou case have been made by both sides as the court considers a claim of nearly $20 million in damages against the IndyCar Series champion.

The hearing in London’s High Court has been ongoing over the past five weeks, with McLaren hinging its claim on lost sponsorship, driver salaries and performance earnings as a result of Palou breaching a contract to join the IndyCar team and instead opting to remain with Chip Ganassi Racing. The Spaniard has since gone on to win three consecutive IndyCar championships and this year’s Indy 500.

In its closing statement, McLaren outlines the total amount it is claiming for before interest/discount at $19,570,578. That sum is made up of:

  • $1,312,500 in driver salaries
  • $7,266,902 in base fees from incoming sponsor NTT
  • $500,000 annual uplift from General Motors
  • $5,839,809 in other IndyCar sponsorships
  • $548,490 in F1 sponsorships
  • $4,102,876 in performance-based revenue

In response to claims from the defense that McLaren led Palou on regarding Formula 1 possibilities, the team counters Palou signed his contract with the IndyCar team solely to explore any F1 opportunities before returning to Ganassi, and with Palou already admitting he was in breach of contract in 2023, that its financial impact is significant.

“In very broad summary, it is clear and obvious that Mr. Palou’s presence in the Arrow McLaren team, over a period of three or four years, would have been highly attractive to sponsors,” McLaren’s legal team said. “Likewise, it would also have boosted the team’s on-track performance by some significant measure. In such circumstances, [the defendant’s] stance that Mr. Palou’s deliberate, public and total breach of the AP Agreements has caused [the claimant] no loss whatsoever is unsustainable and contrary to common sense and sound judgment.”

Palou’s defense team argue no damages are owed, claiming the IndyCar champion was misled over potential Formula 1 opportunities and that McLaren took steps to mitigate its losses by signing Nolan Siegel as one of its IndyCar drivers, rather than an option such as Josef Newgarden from 2025 onwards.

“This is a case in which McLaren Indy has mitigated the whole or a substantial part of its loss by finding a replacement driver who pays it more money than it has lost through the breach,” Palou’s team said in closing statements.

Part of the defense also focuses on key McLaren personnel’s use of disappearing messages on WhatsApp, and a claim that the court has not been able to see all of the applicable correspondence relating to Palou’s breach.

“In an ordinary case, the Court can place weight upon the contemporaneous documentary record as representing the best evidence of what occurred,” Palou’s lawyers claim. “Due to [the claimant’s] intentional misconduct, that is not the case here. In this case, the Court must exercise extreme caution in deciding whether and what weight it can place upon the documents. That is because, from the very beginning, McLaren’s approach has been to carefully curate the documentary record in such a way as to try and inflate the value of their claim, whilst simultaneously deleting and destroying or otherwise suppressing any evidence which might be adverse to their claim.”

As the court considers all of the evidence and both arguments, there is no confirmed timeframe for a decision to be made, although proceedings could stretch into the early part of 2026.