Alex Palou’s quest for a third-straight NTT IndyCar Collection title is off to an ideal begin.
The Spaniard surged to the lead with the right tire technique and saved Josef Newgarden at bay over the closing stretch to say Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. It marked his twelfth race win and first within the season-opener.
“What a tremendous job by everybody at Chip Ganassi Racing, HRC, all people (engaged on) the ten automotive,” Palou advised FOX Sports activities. “They gave me every little thing I wanted this weekend to win. I advised you yesterday that we had a extremely quick automotive. I used to be wanting ahead to the race.
“It’s large,” he later added. “I’m tremendous comfortable. We’ve been working actually, actually onerous. It’s been a spot the place we’ve struggled so much previously, particularly me personally. So to begin with a win in 2025 is wonderful.”
There have been two key moments that led the 27-year-old to the highest of the rostrum, together with one within the opening seconds of the race. A lap 1 crash for Will Energy, Nolan Siegel and Louis Foster opened the door for an early pit cease.
Throughout the first (and solely) warning, many drivers that elected to begin on the softer alternate tire pitted for a swap to the first tire.
Colton Herta, Andretti World
Picture by: Penske Leisure
Completely different methods emerge
That tire change proved to be the profitable technique. The alternate tire was fast to surrender grip and tempo, forcing these working on it to pit street after solely a handful of laps. Every staff needed to full not less than two laps on the alternate, so people who began on primaries needed to sneak in a brief run on the alternate whereas groups that pitted early have been free to make full runs on the primaries.
Palou emerged third amongst people who pitted, trailing Colton Herta and Scott Dixon. However Herta’s day was undone by a pair of pit street points and Palou was in a position to transfer forward of Dixon with an undercut on the ultimate set of stops, liberating him to march on to a different race win.
Josef Newgarden adopted the identical technique and surged previous Dixon into flip 1 after his final cease to take second. Lapped site visitors held up Palou and allowed Newgarden to shut in on his rear wing within the closing laps, however the Tennessean couldn’t discover a means by earlier than the checkered flag flew.
As a substitute it was Dixon that marched ahead, sneaking previous Newgarden on the ultimate lap as he ran out of gas and slowed. Newgarden survived to the checkered flag to finish the rostrum, with Scott McLaughlin and Kyle Kirkwood wrapping up the top-five. Marcus Ericsson, Felix Rosenqvist, Christian Lundgaard, Rinus Veekay and Alexander Rossi capped off the top-10.
Title hopeful Pato O’Ward rallied from a Twenty third-place qualifying effort and an early puncture to salvage an Eleventh-place consequence. Herta was relegated to sixteenth behind him, his day undone by a problem with the right-rear tire on a cease and an additional journey to pit street required by a gas subject.
The Lap 1 incident introduced out the one warning on the day. Meyer Shank Racing’s Marcus Armstrong caught the wall and needed to go to the storage space for a tow hyperlink alternative, however did so with out eliciting one other yellow.
IndyCar shall be again in motion on March 23 at The Thermal Membership.
Images from St. Pete – Race
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IndyCar
Scott Dixon
Alex Palou
Chip Ganassi Racing
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