The payday for the Indianapolis 500 has hit new heights. After consecutive record payouts over the last few years, IndyCar unveiled its largest purse and winners' paycheck Monday.
The iconic race was won by Spain's Alex Palou, who is off to a dominant in 2025, winning all but one of IndyCar's six races so far. It was Palou's first win on an oval, but the three-time champion is that much closer to a quartet of titles with his 16th IndyCar win.
So how much is he taking home from Indy?
How much did the 2025 Indianapolis 500 winning driver earn?
Palou is used to taking home a big check -- but this is the biggest he's ever seen.
Palou earned $3.8 million for his win, according to IndyCar, the biggest winner payout in the history of the race.
Interestingly, 2024 winner Josef Newgarden actually pocketed $4.3 million, but that was padded by a nearly half-million-dollar bonus provided by BorgWarner for winning back-to-back races.
Newgarden's 2023 Indy 500-winning paycheck was $3.7 million, while Marcus Ericsson won $3.1 million in 2022. These victories came after a drop in prize money due to COVID-affected Indy 500s in 2020 and 2021.
The first winner to win six figures was Sam Hanks in 1957, and the first millionaire winner was Emerson Fittipaldi in 1989.
Paydays shot up quickly in the mid-2000s — Dario Franchitti got $1.7 million in 2007 for winning, but the very next year, Scott Dixon's check was just short of $3 million.
What is the total purse for the 2025 Indianapolis 500?
IndyCar announced another record for money given to the 33-car field.
The purse ended up at $20,283,000. That's a sizable jumped from the 2024 purse, which was $18,456,000.
That figure has gone up year-over-year since 2022 as well. In 2023, the purse was $17,021,500, and the year before, it was $16,000,200. Before those years, the record was set in 2008 at $14.4 million.
That's a far cry from the $27,550 purse in the race's debut in 1911. The purse first hit six figures in 1946 and went over $1 million in 1970.
The total purse is not the same as how much the winner takes home, as it's split between the drivers based on where they finished in the pecking order.
How much do the other drivers in the Indianapolis 500 win?
IndyCar doesn't announce a driver-by-driver winnings report, but we have a general idea.
The racing series announced an average payout among the 33 drivers of $596,500, up about $50,000 from 2024.
The only other exact figure we know was for the Indy 500 Rookie of the Year, who was Robert Shwartzman for Prema Racing.
Shwartzman bolstered his payday and his PR with an unprecedented qualifying performance that put him on pole (the first rookie to do it since 1983).
IndyCar announced that he won $327,300, which included a $50,000 for the rookie award.
IndyCar did not announce how much the runner-up made, but last year, Pato O'Ward's winnings were north of $1 million.