Alex Palou Captures The Season Opener At The St. Petersburg Grand Prix
Saint Petersburg , FL( March 2nd, 2025 )
A new season, but the same results. That seemed to be the bottom line for the opener to the IndyCar season St. Petersburg. 2024 season Champion Alex Palou started off the 2025 campaign with the win at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix.
For Chip Ganassi Racing the season couldn’t have started any better as teammate Scott Dixon trailed Palou by 2.867 seconds to nab second place in the season opener, giving Ganassi and Honda the top two spots on the podium. Josef Newgarden, who was looking to lock up second place had an unfortunate electrical problem on the last lap. The Team Penske / Chevrolet driver had to settle for third place.
You couldn’t have asked for any better weather to start the IndyCar season. It was sunny and warm without the usual Florida humidity. Not only was this great for the drivers and teams, but it may also had to do with what may have been a near record turnout in race fans.
With the weather being so cooperative, all the fans were able to see a hyper competitive qualifying session. When the dust was settled the fast six included Colton Herta, Scott McLaughlin, Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Armstrong, Scott Dixon, and Christian Lundgaard. When Colton Herta threw down a lap time of 59.6369 it looked like he had captured pole position. With the clock ticking down, it was almost assured that Herta would be out in front. On the final lap of qualifying Scott McLaughlin uncorked a lap time of 59.4624 to snatch pole position at the last possible second by a scant .1745 second.
When the green flag dropped McLaughlin, got away clean while running the more durable Firestone primary tires, while most of the field were on the softer alternates. But the green flag wouldn’t last long. In what is rapidly becoming a St. Pete tradition there was a first lap crash at turn three. Nolan Siegel had just passed the apex when he had to hit the brakes hard to avoid crashing into a slower car in front of him. This caused a chain reaction of Will Power hitting Seigel, and Louis Foster running into Power.
With the field under caution multiple drivers dove into the pits to change onto the primaries. This gave Alex Palou, Scott Dixon, and Josef Newgarden an advantage as they satisfied the rules about running both compounds of tires. After leading the race util lap thirty three, McLaughlin finally pitted and had to switch to the alternates. McLaughlin’s advantage and tire strategy was undone with the early caution. Unfortunately, there would be no caution period that McLaughlin could successfully use to his advantage to get off the alternate tires.
As the race progressed, the lead would changed based on who came in for a pit stop. On lap forty seven Christian Lundgaard inherited the lead. He held onto it until lap seventy when he pitted for alternates. McLaughlin took over at the front of the field but his lead was short lived as dove into the pits on lap seventy four. Alex Palou was in place to capture the lead and after the final round of pit stops he had a five plus second lead over Josef Newgarden, and five seconds behind him was Scott Dixon.
What turned out to be a pit stop advantage was when Palou executed a perfect pit stop on lap seventy two. Dixon was supposed to mirror Palou, but his radio had been out nearly the whole race. Instead of pitting on the same lap as Palou, he came in on the following lap when the low fuel light came on his dash, effectively giving Palou the undercut advantage.
The final quarter of the race looked like the top three of Palou, Newgarden and Dixon would finish the race in that order. But Palou would get caught behind Stingray Robb on lap eighty five. With Palou unable to find a clear way around Robb, Newgarden and Dixon slowly chipped away at his five second lead. By lap ninety four Newgarden was nearly on the back wing of Palou trailing the leader by a mere.7 seconds.
Palou finally passed Robb with five laps left in the race. Once Palou got passed Robb got out of the way of Newgarden and Dixon and allowed them to continue the chase. With Palou eking out a .9 second lead his victory was assured. As for Newgarden, on the last lap an electrical problem led to a mis-shift and he had to back off to ensure he would finish the race. This allowed Dixon to pass and claim second place and Newgarden was able to finish in third. Palou’s final advantage as he won the race was 2.8 seconds.
St. Petersburg Grand Prix
