F1: Palou Calls for IndyCar drivers to be awarded more F1 Superlicense Points

Alex Palou has called for the NTT IndyCar Series to be given more importance when it comes to awarding Superlicense points to race in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

However, IndyCar has never lobbied for that because it does not want to continually see its best drivers move up to F1, leaving the series with only the scraps.

“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.”

“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 license], 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.”

You need 40 points to qualify for a Superlicense, accumulated over the prior 3 years.

However, with that said, IndyCar drivers already get almost as many points as F2 drivers.

If you win the championship, both F1 and IndyCar drivers get 40 points and qualify immediately for a Superlicense.

However, F2 drivers get the same 40 points for 2nd and 3rd place, whereas IndyCar drivers only get 30 and 20 points.  From 3rd on down is where IndyCar drivers should get more points.

Even F3 drivers earn more points than an IndyCar driver from 4th place on down.  How ludicrous.

As of December 15, 2021, the Supplement 1 Super License points, which also qualify for the 80% rule, are awarded according to the following table: