IndyCar News: Alex Palou Wins Back to Back in St. Petersburg GP

Defending IndyCar Champion and Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg winner Alex Palou (pictured) ran in third early in the race, then pounced. He took the lead in his #10 Ganassi Honda after the first round of pitstops and, except for pitstops, led the rest of the way to go back-to-back in the NTT IndyCar Series season opener on the 1.8-mile St. Petersburg street circuit.

Palou won 8 of 17 races last year to win his 4th IndyCar title in five years, and he starts 2026 in a strong position to win his 5th title.  He’s just too good for the rest of the drivers. It was his 20th career IndyCar win, and he led 59 of 100 laps.

Palou’s margin of victory of 12.4948 seconds is the largest margin of victory in the history of this event.  Paul Tracy won the inaugural race in 2003 by 12.136 seconds.

“Incredible day.  I don’t know what to say from this team anymore. It’s been a long offseason,” said Palou.

“I was sad last year that the season ended. I just wanted to continue going, because I knew it was so magical and so tough to get such a great car, such a great team behind me.”

“Yeah, this team has done it again here for this weekend.  It’s very early on, but still, I think that shows all the preparation they did, and I had by far the best car today.”

” We had different tire strategies. I was a little bit surprised by the fuel-saving that the 3 and the 28 were doing at that moment. Just felt like it was just being more in our favor,
especially knowing that Honda always gets a lot better mileage.”

“I was just waiting. I didn’t know if we were going to have enough tires at the end to make it, but yeah, we did. We had a couple of clean laps, and that’s what gave us the lead. So, yeah, it doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes you go, you try to push, and the tires are gone, so you just lose the ability to pit and get out of the bad tires, but we were able to keep both fuel and tires.”

“We are genuinely very excited. We’re genuinely very proud of the amazing work that everybody has done in the team.”

Scott McLaughlin Finishes Second

Polesitter Scott McLaughlin had nothing for Palou and came home 2nd, 13s behind Palou in his No 3 DEX Team Penske Chevrolet.

The 2022 winner commented on his race strategy today.

“Obviously you want to be top step. I think that was a solid day for the DEX Chevy. I think we maximized our strategy. I think it was going to go one way or the other with tires.

“I maybe thought the black tire could have probably performed a little bit better in that first stint, but yeah, my car just didn’t turn that tire on well enough. I wanted to pull a gap, but I was also trying to save fuel and make it a two-stop in some ways. It was a difficult first stint, and then I sort of got stuck behind the Andretti guys when they were losing their tires.

“I thought our car was really good. Just probably was a little bit hidden today just where it was positioned on the track, but that’s okay. Like I said, I think we maximized our day. No mistakes. Pit road was great. Yeah, just a good start.”

Christian Lundgaard Finishes Third

Christian Lundgaard, in his No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, started 12th and rallied to move up during the race. He was all over the back of McLaughlin for the last 10 laps but could not get past and had to settle for the final podium position, behind Palou and McLaughlin.

“It was a good race. I think we just very clearly missed it in qualifying yesterday.  We made some changes after P2 that just simply didn’t work.”

“Obviously didn’t transfer from Q2 and wasn’t necessarily that upset, because I knew exactly where we had gone wrong. It was just undo that, and I think the car just came alive like we expected it to today.”

“Again, you have to do the job out there, and I thought it was a very exciting way to start the season.”

Kyle Kirkwood hung onto his diabolical No 27 JM Bullion Honda to finish 4th, 25s behind Palou. “It was a great day overall for the #27 crew and for Honda with Palou’s win and us in fourth. We were running in second for the majority of that last stint, but I ultimately just had too much tire degradation.

“It was beautiful race, and we had some beautiful pace. Everything went great—reliability, fuel saving, everything was up to par. We drove from 15th to fourth, which is a huge deal in the IndyCar series. Everybody knows how hard that is to accomplish, so it was a big day for us in the #27 car.”

2024 race winner here, Pato O’Ward rounded out the top-5 in his No 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.

Mick Schumacher Has DNF

Mick Schumacher        Photo by Brian Fahie/Autoracing1.com

Mick Schumacher, the rookie for Rahal Letterman Lanigan, did not get to complete a lap today thanks to Santino Ferrucci and Sting Ray Robb.  The No 14 and the No 77 made contact in the apex of the corner in Turn 4 and Schumacher was collected in the incident.

The next NTT INDYCAR SERIES race is the Good Ranchers 250 on Saturday, March 7 at Phoenix Raceway, part of the “Desert Double” weekend at the 1-mile oval that also features a NASCAR Cup Series race Sunday.

2026 Firestone GP of St. Petersburg Results

Lucille Dust reporting live from St. Petersburg