INDIANAPOLIS — This Alex Palou news isn’t all that shocking in a sense that I’ve heard rumors and chatter in both directions for him for next season. One side said he had a contract with Arrow McLaren Racing. Another side said this success and a possible F1 seat with McLaren now being out of the woods moving forward, he was interested in staying with Chip Ganassi Racing.

I had heard that Ganassi offered Palou a sizeable contract to stay.

Which is why Silly Season was hanging on the balance of what direction this goes. However, Palou and Ganassi maintained that nothing would be announced until after the season concluded next month.

Now, Christmas came a month early.

Multiple reports and sources have come out to make it clear that Palou isn’t going to McLaren now in 2024. It looks like he’s staying with Ganassi after all.

So, what does this do for the domino effect?

Marcus Ericsson is next up. Ganassi has offered him a team. He told me and Tony Donohue on Friday that they’ve talked about the offer. However, he also said he’s talking to other teams too.

He wants to be a pay driver but Ganassi’s business model is that the 8 and 11 rides bring enough funding to pay for their seats and help with the 9, 10 seats too. With Scott Dixon being rightfully paid handsomely and now Palou getting a huge raise to stay, Ganassi doesn’t have the millions owed to Ericsson to stay too.

He made an offer and has been trying to find funding to make an ever more lucrative offer to keep him too. But unless he finds that large sponsor, it won’t be as much money to Ericsson as he can make elsewhere.

Andretti Autosport does have the money and is the opposite of Ganassi. Devlin DeFrancesco’s deal pays for 2 cars. He’s leaving at seasons end. Gainbridge and Dan Towriss has invested enough money to help propel this team to make hires on talent and not how much money they bring.

DHL is rumored to be in a contract year and wants an international star. Ericsson makes the most sense to replace Romain Grosjean there. Towriss and investments can help on the Kirkwood car and they can hire someone else for the 29 seat.

With Grosjean’s antics and the possibility of landing Ericsson, it’s affected Grosjean’s potential of returning. If Ericsson comes back to Ganassi, then Grosjean in theory could stay at Andretti. However, it sounds as if Ericsson could end up in the 28 and someone like David Malukas or Callum Ilott in the 29.

Marcus Armstrong wants to stay in INDYCAR too and with Ganassi and he has some money so most expect him to run the 11 car full-time. That could leave a Dixon, Palou, Armstrong lineup with 1 seat open.

Andretti could roll out Herta, Kirkwood, Ericsson and either Malukas or Ilott.

Malukas also makes sense for Ganassi too in the sense that he too could bring HMD and DeFrancesco replaces HMD’s funding with his. Ganassi and HMD have ties in Indy NXT and I don’t think their driver, Kyffin Simpson is ready yet. Simpson’s family has Ridgeline ties, big ones at that, and you may have noticed Ridgeline branding on Ganassi cars the last two seasons.

It also helps with the searching for funding for Ganassi’s 2 pay to play rides and gets them a strong driver for it.

Enter McLaren now too. Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi are back. Is Felix Rosenqvist now or does McLaren make an offer to Ericsson?

Zak Brown said on Carb Day this past May that they’d be interested in him if they expand to a four-car operation. That’s a tall ask though to expand that much and to do so twice in the last two years.

“I think he’s probably the top free agent, so I’m a little surprised, given how strong things are commercially that, reading the quotes, that his current team doesn’t have the commercial confidence that they can sell the Indy 500 winner and championship contender and sign him up,” Brown said on Carb Day. “I understand they probably have a little bit of time so I’m sure they’re working at it, but I wouldn’t let him go if he was driving for me, and I would have the commercial confidence that I could get the sponsorship. But that’s not my issue. So, if he does become a free agent and we run a fourth car, he would definitely be heavily under consideration.”

Maybe he now doesn’t have to run a fourth car to make it happen? Maybe Ericsson, who once raced for the team when it was Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, comes back to join Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi since Palou is out.

Rosenqvist has been rumored to Andretti, RLL and MSR too and maybe he’s sick of this on going yearly saga. He can talk to other teams.

Graham Rahal said he has no deal to stay with RLL yet but doesn’t expect to leave. Christian Lundgaard is in the first year of the deal and unless Andretti comes calling, I don’t see him leaving. Rosenqvist or Juri Vips come to play here for that third seat.

MSR has Tom Blomqvist in one of the cars and is the second going to go to Simon Pagenaud, Rosenqvist or someone else?

Then you have Callum Ilott who’s got options to get out of his multi-year deal with Juncos Hollinger Racing. Ganassi would make a ton of sense there as long as Ilott has a budget too and a proven fast driver but so does a return to JHR too.

Penske is staying status quo. ECR has Rinus VeeKay back but the 20 car open. Rumor is DeFrancesco is heading to DCR. Sting Ray Robb could be out of the 51.