Alex Palou's lawyers accuse McLaren of 'suppressing evidence' in $20M lawsuit as closing statements made

Alex Palou and McLaren's $20 million lawsuits' closing statements revealed that the Spaniard's lawyers urged the London High Court to exercise caution on the whole matter. The defendant's camp asserted that McLaren had removed or tried to suppress any evidence that would have seemingly helped the reigning IndyCar champion in presenting his side of the issue.

In 2022, Palou had initially signed with McLaren for the 2023 season, but a lawsuit was filed against him by his current employer, Chip Ganassi Racing, as they had an option to retain him for the subsequent season. Then, all parties came to an agreement that the Spaniard would drive for CGR in 2023 but would leave for McLaren in 2024.

This also led to the closure of the lawsuit by CGR. However, this was not the only time that Palou would find himself at the heart of a lawsuit, as in 2023, he decided not to honor his contract with McLaren, witnessing the lack of an opportunity with the team in the F1 realm.

This led McLaren to file a $20 million lawsuit against Palou for the loss it seemingly incurred from the 28-year-old not fulfilling his contract. But the defendant has often argued that the Woking-based squad had lured him with an opportunity to get into F1 in their exchange of messages.

However, with the disappearing messages feature being used by McLaren personnel in their interaction on WhatsApp, this claim can seemingly not be proved. So, this led Palou's camp to assert to the court that such conduct showcases the team's wrong intentions from the get-go, and it should keep this issue in mind before delivering its verdict (via RACER):

"In an ordinary case, the Court can place weight upon the contemporaneous documentary record as representing the best evidence of what occurred. 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."

Alex Palou has since remained at Chip Ganassi Racing and is on a long-term contract with the team.

---

McLaren denies Alex Palou's claims of stringing him along for an F1 seat

Alex Palou sitting in the McLaren MCL36 during the Free Practice 1 session for the F1 United States Grand Prix weekend- Source: Getty

Like most racing drivers, moving over to F1 is often the major goal that they aim for. This was also the case for Alex Palou, who used to race in the European racing leagues before switching over to IndyCar a few years ago.

Despite this, his ambition to move to F1 was still there, and that's when McLaren stopped by to inquire about his availability. While this arrangement seemed possible initially, a catastrophic fallout soon commenced.

Alex Palou's camp claimed that the Spaniard's biggest reason to move over to McLaren was due to the supposed F1 promises by the British team. But, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown bashed back at such claims earlier in the court case, and said (via Reuters):

"I never strung along Alex. I never told him he would be under consideration for 2023 ... there was some optionality to join F1."

Meanwhile, Alex Palou won his fourth IndyCar title this year and would try to win his fourth consecutive drivers' crown in 2026.

Edited by Geetansh Pasricha