Alex Palou was the 2025 Indy 500 winner and received his Borg-Warner trophy, and his face on the trophy was sculpted by Will Behrends. However, not much is known about the Tryon-native, so let’s take a deeper look at who Behrends is, the man behind the Indy 500 winner’s face on the Borg-Warner trophy.
Each year, the Indy 500 winner is presented with the Borg-Warner trophy with their face on it, and Will Behrends is the person behind its sculpting. He has held this role for over three decades.
Behrends was born in Tryon, North Carolina, and went on to do his bachelor’s in architecture and his master’s in fine arts and sculpture from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, respectively. This helped him burst into the sculpting scene as he maintains his sculpting studio in Tryon.
He was then commissioned to sculpt his first Indy 500 winner’s face in 1990, and Arie Luyendyk was the first driver that he got to prepare their likeness. Despite the previous trends of sculptors changing every so often on the Borg-Warner trophy, this trend was broken by Behrends, as BorgWarner, the trophy’s sponsor, found his work to be of the highest quality and decided to continue commissioning the duty of sculpting the Indy 500 winner’s face to him.
This means that he has sculpted the face of the Indy 500 race winner 36 times, and this tally is slated to go up each year. In this time, he has sculpted the faces of 25 different drivers, with Alex Palou being the latest addition to this list.
Apart from this, Behrends is also known for making statues of former U.S. presidents that are on display in the U.S. Capitol building in Washington. Moreover, he also made statues of San Francisco Giants’ legends, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Gaylord Perry.
Will Behrends talks about the challenge of preparing a likeness of a person after sculpting Alex Palou’s face for the 2025 Indy 500
Will Behrends often leaves nothing on the table when it comes to sculpting. This can be interpreted from BorgWarner’s continued support for over three decades to Behrends.
With the 2025 edition of the race witnessing a new driver in the form of Alex Palou winning the race, Will Behrends had the task of sculpting the likeness of the Spaniard for the Borg-Warner trophy:
Reflecting on the challenge, he said (via Indianapolis Motor Speedway):
“I like a challenge. So, doing the same face two years in a row is definitely a challenge. But I always enjoy working on a new face. You just have to study it — and he’s got a good one. I was complimenting him on his nose, and he said, ‘That’s a family nose.’ He thinks it’s big, but I think it’s very distinctive.”
“The race is different every year, and so is this experience. But the longer I do it, the more we appreciate it. It’s something we look forward to. Getting to know the winners, not just working from photographs, it helps my work, and it’s a joy. Alex was kind enough to spend time with us. It’s wonderful. He got to experience a little of our life here, and for us, it’s just really a lot of fun.”
On the other hand, Behrends also has his very own Baby Borg at home. After sculpting his 33rd different face for the Borg-Warner trophy, BorgWarner decided to celebrate the occasion and gave him a Baby Borg trophy in 2023.
Edited by Geetansh Pasricha
