No, you are not dreaming.
The gruelling 180 days since the chequered flag at Nashville Superspeedway signified the end of the 2025 season are now over. The endless wait is no more and we can now turn our eyes to the 18 races that will make up the new-look 2026 IndyCar calendar. One driver’s title-winning campaign will start this weekend as the hunt for the Astor Challenge Cup begins. It’s time to kick off the 2026 IndyCar season on the Streets of St. Petersburg – Race 1 of 18 of the season.
What happened in the off-season?
Let’s start off with what happened in the driver market and who we will see for the first time in their respective new teams this weekend.
Afer 17 years with Team Penske, Will Power departed the team soon after the season finale in Nashville as he embarks on the most significant change in his IndyCar career as he moves to Andretti Global for 2026. He replaces the outgoing Colton Herta who has made the switch to Formula 2 with the ultimate goal of reaching Formula One with Cadillac. Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson will continue in the No.27 and No.28 entries respectively.
Once Power announced his departure, there was little surprise that Penske picked David Malukas to drive the No.12, as the Lithuanian-American was long seen as Power’s heir in that entry. He will drive alongside the returning Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin as Penske aim to rebound after their disastrous 2025.
Malukas’ departure at AJ Foyt Racing left an open seat alongside Santino Ferrucci, with the team hiring Indy NXT vice-champion Caio Collet to drive the No.4 entry, one of three rookies who will make their IndyCar debuts at St. Petersburg this weekend.
One of those other rookies will be Mick Schumacher, son of seven-time F1 champion Michael, who makes a much-anticipated move to the US with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. He’ll race the No.47 entry, replacing Devlin DeFrancesco at the team, with Louis Foster and Graham Rahal continuing at the organisation.
The final rookie will be Indy NXT Champion Dennis Hauger who makes the move to Dale Coyne Racing. Hauger’s move to Coyne also saw the introduction of a partnership between Coyne and Hauger’s Indy NXT team Andretti, with many tipping the Norwegian driver to feature in the teams’ IndyCar line-up in the future. Hauger replaces Jacob Abel at the team.
He’ll be alongside the returning Romain Grosjean who will be competing again after a year out from the series. He will also return to the team he made his highly successful IndyCar debut with in 2021.
Grosjean will replace Rinus VeeKay at the team, as the Dutch driver moves to Juncos Hollinger Racing for the forthcoming season. He will line-up alongside Sting Ray Robb, who’s return to the team was under doubt but was finally confirmed late last year. Conor Daly departs the team after one-and-a-half seasons.
Chip Ganassi Racing will keep their line-up of Álex Palou, Scott Dixon and Kyffin Simpson whilst Arrow McLaren will continue with Pato O’Ward, Nolan Siegel and Christian Lundgaard. Meyer Shank Racing will continue their alliance with Ganassi by retaining Marcus Armstrong and Felix Rosenqvist whilst Ed Carpenter Racing will continue to field Alexander Rossi and Christian Rasmussen.
PREMA Racing made their IndyCar debut in 2025, which featured a magical Indianapolis 500 pole run from Robert Shwartzman. However, after key leadership figures left the team and a key backer pulled out, PREMA have been unable to source funding in the off-season and will miss St. Petersburg. It is still unclear whether PREMA will compete at all in 2026, whether under their own entity or under the guise of a buyer.
Other non-driver related changes
IndyCar also announced an Independent Officiating Board (IOB) after previous controversy in the wake of cheating allegations held against Penske. The organisation will be run by Raj Nair, Ray Evernham and Ronan Morgan who have been establishing IndyCar Officiating Inc. throughout this off-season. It has been confirmed that Kyle Novak will continue in his role as race director and vice-president of officiating, whilst Kevin Blanch will continue as the series’ technical director.
There have also been several minor rule changes made throughout the off-season which will take effect for the first time this weekend in St. Petersburg.
The tyre usage requirement rules have been adjusted for street circuits, with drivers now being required to use one set of the harder primary compound and two sets of the softer alternate compound – which is one more than was previously required. Differently to previous years, there is no rule on whether they need to be sticker sets however the rule which enforces two laps to be completed on each tyre remains in effect.
IndyCar have implemented the rule to promote further strategy choices on the alternate tyre. The tyre had degraded very quickly in some races in 2025, St. Petersburg being one of them, but Firestone have designed the tyre to have less drop-off in 2026.
“IndyCar is always looking into ways to improve the quality of what is already exceptional on-track action,” IndyCar Senior Vice President, Competition and Operations Mark Sibla said. “This street circuit update will challenge drivers and strategists alike and provide an avenue for even more memorable wheel-to-wheel action at our fan-favored street events in 2026.”
Off-season changes have also seen an adjustment to the practice format, which will once again first feature at St. Petersburg this weekend.
Practice 2 will now mirror the format of Practice 1, where the field is split by odd and even pit boxes. All cars will be allowed to compete in the opening 40 minutes, before the field is split into their two groups for the last 12 minutes of the session.
The change to the practice format now means that qualifying groups will be decided based on the qualifying results of the previous race, with 2025 entrant points being in use this weekend.
Warm-ups have also been extended from 25 to 30 minutes, with FOX Sports now utilising an hours’ broadcast window to further promote the pre-race build-up.
The series has also adjusted late-race restart procedures which will see cars that are a lap down to the leader moved to the back of the field at most late race restarts – which will be expanded to almost every race in 2026.
What to expect from St. Petersburg
Drivers spend the majority of their off-seasons training in the gym to be in the best physical shape ahead of the new season starting and that is for good reason as St. Petersburg provides one of the toughest physical challenges in all of motorsport due to the extremely high Florida temperatures.
The track may be a short one at just 1.808 miles (2.910 km), with lap times often under 60 seconds, but the 100 laps around the streets are one of the trickiest of the year. Cars will race down the runway at the Albert Whitted Airport before navigating onto the city streets themselves. From this point in the lap there is very little opportunity for error with previous St. Petersburg races being filled with incidents and don’t be surprised to see the same this weekend. The main overtaking opportunities on the track lie at Turn 1 and Turn 4.
Palou’s dominant run to a fourth IndyCar championship started here last year as he claimed his first victory at the circuit after being on the right strategy at the right time ahead of Dixon and Newgarden. Dixon was frustrated after radio issues meant he lost communication and his one-lap undercut ultimately cost him the victory whilst his countryman McLaughlin saw his hopes fall through after an opening lap caution saw his strategy go awry.
Expect McLaughlin to be one of the favourites this weekend based on his previous St. Petersburg record. He took pole in both 2022 and 2025, won his first IndyCar race at the former and also claimed a podium in 2024 before being disqualified for illegal push-to-pass usage on restarts.
The circuit has also seen six winners in the last six seasons. O’Ward inherited victory six weeks after the race in 2024 after Newgarden was also disqualified for illegal push-to-pass usage. That was a year after O’Ward had victory fall out of his grasp through a plenum event and Ericsson took advantage to claim his most recent career win to date.
Herta won in 2021, after Newgarden went back-to-back in 2019 and 2020. Like McLaughlin, Newgarden’s record is particularly strong at St. Petersburg with three on-track victories and further podiums in 2021 and 2025.
Other active winners include Rahal who won in 2008 and Power who won in 2010 and 2014. Power has got a renowned pole position record in St. Petersburg with nine to his name, all earned between 2010 and 2020. His new employers at Andretti also have an exemplary qualifying record on street courses – could the stars align for a magical debut pole?
St. Petersburg polesitters in the current field in addition to Power include McLaughlin, Newgarden and Grosjean. Rosenqvist holds the lap record from 2024 but don’t expect that to be broken this weekend.
Dixon has done a lot of things in his historic IndyCar career but one thing the New Zealander has never achieved is a pole or a victory at St. Petersburg despite having nine podiums on the Florida streets including six runner-up finishes. Is this the weekend that Dixon can finally tick off one of very few winless venues?
150 seconds of push-to-pass will be available for drivers on Sunday’s race with five primary sets and five alternate sets of tyres provided to each team. As always, rookies have been provided with an additional set of primary tyres.
What are the key storylines for St. Petersburg and 2026?
There’s been one key question throughout the off-season.
“How do you stop Álex Palou?”
It’s a question that still feels particularly unanswered heading into this weekend. Palou heads into 2026 aiming to win a fifth IndyCar championship in six seasons, including a fourth consecutive, which would make him the first driver since Sébastien Bourdais between 2004 and 2007 to achieve such a feat.
It was Palou’s dominant start to 2025 which saw him effectively have the championship in his grasp by the time the Month of May came around and after he swept the month, there was little chance for his opposition to make a meaningful title challenge.
And after Palou’s dominance in 2025, it seems a mammoth task for anybody to reduce the deficit to the Spaniard and Chip Ganassi Racing. Threats are likely to come from the likes of Newgarden, McLaughlin, O’Ward, Kirkwood, Dixon, Power and Lundgaard but it is hard to envision anybody having the capability of doing so over 18 races. However, St. Petersburg gives the first opportunity to lay a significant marker down at a circuit that has not typically been Palou’s strongest.
Maybe the biggest threat as St. Petersburg comes from Team Penske who have won seven of the last 14 races (plus Newgarden’s ‘win’ in 2024) and have always shown very strongly on the Florida streets.
It is a significant year for Penske who aim to bounce back from a catastrophic 2025 which didn’t see them victorious until Race 15 and saw Power as the top Penske driver as ninth in the championship. Newgarden’s season has been particularly well documented, where he claimed only seven top 10 finishes and a sole victory at the season finale in Nashville.
That said, there is no doubting Newgarden’s capability and the majority of his 2025 disasters came through no fault of his own. His St. Pete credentials are not to be doubted and this poses a great opportunity to start the year in the right note before he tries to defend his race victory at Phoenix next week.
It also marks a changing of the guard at the team with Malukas making his first appearance with the team this weekend. Although Malukas’ prowess is expected to come on the ovals, he aims to forge his own Penske career the right way this weekend.
On the other side of the move, it will mark the first time that Power will compete in Andretti colours. The team have shown great development in previous years and have generally become more competitive year-on-year. Could Power headline the continued Andretti resurgence?
That said, watch out for Kirkwood too, who won two of the street course races in 2025 and has progressively improved his result at St. Petersburg year-on-year which was highlighted by a fifth-place finish last year. Kirkwood quietly ran to fourth in the championship last year and showed the most belief on IndyCar’s annual Content Days that Palou could be caught. There’s no doubting Andretti have the best credentials to do so on street courses. St. Petersburg also represents a home race for Kirkwood.
It also marks the start of the particularly intriguing Rookie of the Year battle between Schumacher, Collet and Hauger in what is expected to be one of the most competitive rookie classes in recent times. With three having a wealth of different motorsport experience, US-based experience and a generally similarly competitive level of teams, there is very little to separate the trio.
Indy NXT Preview
New for 2026 previews – we’ll have a brief look at IndyCar’s primary development series Indy NXT.
Their 17 race season begins this weekend as drivers look to secure the all-important funding to help reach their dreams of IndyCar. This weekend will see the debut of Cape Motorsports powered by Ed Carpenter Racing, AJ Foyt Racing and Cusick Morgan Motorsports in a record-high field of 24 cars. Juncos Hollinger Racing will also return after a year absence, marking four IndyCar teams with active Indy NXT interests.
Hauger dominated this race last year on his Indy NXT debut which placed a big statement of authority on his way to his title-winning season, one of seven cases of the Indy NXT St. Petersburg winner becoming the Indy NXT champion.
Sunday’s race will take place over 45 laps with 50 seconds of push-to-pass. Three new sets of tyres are to be used with one new set to be used in qualifying. Two carryover sets can be brought over from the test at Miami International Autodrome during the pre-qualifying practices.
The race represents a home event for Nikita Johnson, Max Garcia, Juan Manuel Correa, Alessandro de Tullio and Enzo Fittipaldi. It will also see Garcia, Fittipaldi, de Tullio and Johnson start their bids for the Rookie of the Year crown alongside Nicholas Monteiro, Carson Etter, Nicolas Stati, Jack Beeton, Tymek Kucharczyk and Alexander Koreiba.
Although it is always hard to predict, expect Garcia, Fittipaldi, Kucharczyk, Lochie Hughes, Max Taylor and Myles Rowe to be near the front of the field as the early championship favourites.
Timings
Indy NXT Practice 1: 12:30 ET (17:30 GMT) Friday
IndyCar Practice 1: 13:35 ET (18:35 GMT) Friday
Indy NXT Practice 2: 08:35 ET (13:35 GMT) Saturday
IndyCar Practice 2: 09:35 ET (14:35 GMT) Saturday
Indy NXT Qualifying: 15:45 ET (20:45 GMT) Saturday
IndyCar Qualifying: 16:35 ET (21:35 GMT) Saturday
Warm-up: 09:05 ET (14:05 GMT) Sunday
Indy NXT Race: 10:06 ET (15:06 GMT) Sunday
Grand Prix of St. Petersburg: 12:29 ET (17:29 GMT) Sunday
With that all you need to know prior to this weekend, there’s only one thing we need to wait for. The pre-race festivities and the green flag to mark the start of the 2026 IndyCar season. Yes, that’s right. INDYCAR. IS. BACK.
There’s plenty to look forward to in St. Petersburg and throughout the rest of the 2026 season. DIVEBOMB will bring you all the news and updates throughout the weekend as well as post-race analysis, not just for St. Petersburg, but all 18 races that make up the 2026 IndyCar schedule.