ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For the 22nd straight year, IndyCar racing has arrived in the Tampa Bay area. The season begins on Sunday with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
25 cars will be driving throughout the downtown waterfront and the Albert Whitted Airport on a 1.8 mile track with 14 turns. A sizeable crowd showed up on Friday for the practice day, watching IndyCar, Indy NXT and NASCAR Truck Series drivers take the course. This year’s event adds a new wrinkle, as the Truck Series participates in the weekend for the first time.
But once that green flag drops on Sunday afternoon, one of the premier events of the IndyCar Series will take center stage.
The defending champion is Alex Palou, who is also the three-time defending IndyCar champion with four titles overall, widely regarded as the best driver in the sport.
“Super exciting, we’ve been preparing a lot this offseason, and it’s very exciting to prepare and go over what went well in 2025 but as Chip said this is what we like we want to be at the track, we like competing and it’s finally arrived,” Palou said.
But there is an impressive field out there looking to dethrone the Spaniard, especially Will Power, who won this race in 2010 and 2014. He knows what it takes to win on the streets of St. Petersburg, and the two-time IndyCar champion is confident he can get it done this weekend.
“It’s gotten harder and harder every year, the competition has gotten really tough in this series, for one you have to qualify very well then it’s good strategy, good pit stops, good execution, no mistakes from the driver, good setup, so many things and then luck has to go a little bit your way but tough to do but we’re going to try and do that this weekend,” Power said.
Crews have been building this temporary track for weeks, and the tear down on Sunday evening is estimated to last six hours, but there is plenty of racing left throughout the weekend until then.
