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In the past few weeks the name of Alex Palou has really flown around the motorsports sphere for his connections and drama in Formula 1 and IndyCar with Chip Ganassi and McLaren. But what may have went more unseen was the appearance that he (or at least his PR team) basically faked their way up to YouTube “fame” at the same time. This is how IndyCar’s champion just got busted.
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44 comments
What did you think of Alex Palou’s (former) channel?
It’s irrelevant. Seriously, I don’t understand why a handful of creators are trying to make this into something. It might be a big deal for YouTube creators, but I guarantee you that Zak Brown doesn’t care.
It boggles my mind that anybody would think for even a moment that McLaren would give the slightest damn about AP’s YouTube channel or how many followers he has.
They care about his driving. Dude won the championship last year, and people think that the reason he’s getting signed is because of a YouTube channel?
At the same time, y’all think you’re the only ones capable of looking up a channel on social blade? You think that anybody who is considering how marketable he is would maybe, just maybe, look into that themselves?
It’s just gives me the hunch that YouTube is too reliant on Automation, and being hackable and Bots on YouTube. which is a problem.
@Rudd Grand Prix – Speedrun Racing I definitely agree…..its just nothing new. And possibly nothing to do with him…?
Who cares
Palou has never had an F1 ride.
Alex Palou’s PR team must’ve been living in a dumpster fire this past week
Alex Palou’s PR team is down tremendous rn
What else happened?
It has been hot
Love the IndyCar content
Palou’s PR Team must be a Nightmare to be with. Also this is the 1st Time I saw you Talking about IndyCar Man.
im just sitting here thinking, if mclaren chose palou to drive one of their cars based on how popular he is rather than by how fast of a racer he is, that’s depressing
Mclaren certainly did not do that. You dont need to be depressed. They are only interested in whether he can get close to Lando on the track for starters. Palou outside of Indycar and America is not well known.There is something very fishy about all this I do agree and it doesnt paint Alex in a good light. I looked at Lando Norris youtube channels out of interest and they have 900K subscribers and some vids nearly 3million views. It puts the numbers stated into context. Lando got his F1 seat as a driver with an exceptional junior record and an even better driver in an F1 car when he was 18. I think Mclaren wouldnt even bother to look or even ask if Palou had a Youtube presence. Its of no interest to them. They want a potential race winning car driver period.He seems a nice guy and speaks well and is a talented race driver. Thats all Mclaren are interested in at this stage.
Well all that is is speculation. And its only based on the evidence that Palou bought a botted youtube channel. I honestly don’t understand how this says anything at all about McLaren.
@Alexis Borden I agree
Yeah, I mean the entire rumor is around them snatching up Alex Palou to replace a popular but chronically underperforming driver.
Please keep more IndyCar content coming.
If this whole situation is based around the fact that an F1 team would rather choose a driver based on their social media presence rather than driving ability, it says more about the state of Motorsports than it does about Alex Palou. Sure there are paid drivers as there alway has been, but this seems like an evolution to that side of the sport.
@vir123456 johnson it says nothing about F1. Says a lot about the ignorance of some content creators that they think it’s a factor
@Nunn Motorsports no, that was the state of one team – a backmarker at that
@Valerie Rodger Red Bull’s title sponsor is Red Bull, none of those teams acutally make any money, at least they didn’t used to before the budget cap. But the point remains, this is marketing budget, Mercedes has even said as much that the F1 team is extremely valuable marketing and that’s why they do it. There’s only one team in F1 that isn’t someone’s marketing scheme and that’s Williams and they’re the most dirt poor organization in the sport.
@Diego Vidaurre Do you watch F1? Yes Riccardo is a cucumber this year but Hamilton is no where near overpaid.
Basically, his PR team bought a pre-existing YouTube channel with 150k subscribers, scrubbed the videos, forgot to delete the community tab content, and changed the name to Alex Palou.
Yes. Appears so. This is a blunder, not a vast conspiracy.
@Hornet Guy yeah, I’m not really seeing the big controversy
Alex Palou is a great driver and i still think he’s a great guy… surrounded by some shady people who try to take advantage of him. Anyway, we’ll see how this unfolds…
Keep up the indycar content please
Busted? Busted of what? He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not illegal to buy a YouTube channel. He wanted a channel with followers and he got it. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing all. People just trying to stir up drama, that’s all it is. Make something out of nothing. Try to tear somebody down to make themselves feel better about themselves. McLaren did not sign Alex because he had a YouTube channel with 100k followers. That’s ridiculous. They signed him because he’s an Indycar champion and one of the best drivers in Indycar. It’s that simple. David Land and other YouTube’s are being silly. My goodness.
same here, as I search Alex palou I see nothing in the news about him other than ganassi and McLaren arguing they both signed him for ’23
It may not be on Alex personally as he probably had nothing to do with this, but it is shady as all hell and not a good look at all I think is the point here guys. No one is actively trying to tear the driver himself down but more mindset and dishonesty behind his PR team.
David Lan has been silly since he thought he could do journalism videos years ago
7:44 is your answer dummies. Stooooopido
Keep on making Indycar content man.
I just want to make some things clear, as I am a Spanish guy who is inside a Palou community. First of all this Alex Palou Racing (which I belive was bought) is obviously something created by a management team or so, by no means I believe Alex had control over it. He actually has a YT real channel with a hundread subs and no videos on it. He has also been quite active in twitch with nearly 20k real followers ( I say real because I know some of them IRL) and a Discord community with probably a couple thousend members. Palou is by no means as popular as other drivers, even though he won last year championship; his introverted character as well as not having English as his native language ( because in Spanish in his Twitch livestreams was quite open) are the main reasons. Something else I want to highlight is that recently he has been doing less and less streams, that may be because he was working with this new contract and trying to tie up all the loose ends, I not really sure. Just want all the best for Alex even though I am not sure changing was the best option
He has a small real following
There’s zero way that McLaren cares about Palou’s social media following. Lol, this isn’t a “big deal” that could destroy Palou’s life.
bro trust me mclaren arent even thinking about him
Honestly, having listened to Alex Palou a lot, he seems like this kind of thing would be way way over his head. I don’t believe him to be vein or indeed to really have an interest in social media and general popularity, so this entire mess MUST be on account of his management imo. I’d also be certain that his YouTube numbers have nothing to do with his contract, and McLaren aren’t going to give out testing or reserve driver contracts based on YouTube followers of all things
I love your channel and the NASCAR content, but as an avid IndyCar fan, i’d love to hear your take on some more IndyCar topics as well moving forward as others have said as well
This is the biggest non news worthy thing I’ve seen on this channel. This only matters if he is a pro youtuber. He’s not. He’s a race car driver. I think they still count wins not followers
The jokes on us, really. He made the most of this manipulation by potentially climbing up the motorsport latter and became CHAMPION. I feel this shouldn’t be as controversial considering that he is talented.
Yeah, it’s really weird that such a big deal is being made out of this. I really don’t think McLaren gives a damn.
As a NASCAR fan, let me just say I appreciate you releasing this video. I love watching your content, even if it’s IndyCar themed.