A commercial court judge in the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales will decide what damages McLaren is to receive following Palou’s U-turn last summer that breached both driving and promotional contracts he’d signed to race in the IndyCar Series and act as its reserve Formula 1 driver.
Legal documents that have been filed to the court from both sides have been reviewed by Autosport, and they reveal that Palou is not disputing his breach of contract but is contesting the size of the damages that McLaren is seeking as recompense.
Palou’s given reason for the split was that he “lost trust and confidence” in what he believed was a promise of a future F1 race seat, something that McLaren counters as “baseless”.
Palou had already driven McLaren’s TPC (testing previous cars) machinery, taken part in FP1 at the 2022 United States GP and attended the 2023 Miami GP as its official reserve driver. He did this as part of a mediation agreement from a previous contractual spat between McLaren and his current IndyCar team, Chip Ganassi Racing.
In that case, heard in the American legal system, Ganassi kept Palou as its IndyCar driver in 2023 and he won his second title for the team. Apart from references to his latest Ganassi contract, a three-year deal that he committed to in August of last year to spark the McLaren split, CGR is not a part of this lawsuit in any way.
The claimant is McLaren Indy LLC and McLaren Racing Ltd and the defendant is Palou himself and his American company ALPA Racing USA LLC, which operates his services as a racing driver.
Source: Autosport