![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/aDSC_7814-2.jpg\")
Photo: Ryan Kemna\/TRE<\/p>\nST. PETERSBURG, Fla \u2014 The six month offseason did nothing to dull Alex Palou. He wins the opening round of the 2026 NTT INDYCAR Series at St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
Palou successfully defends his win as he starts his season the same way he did last year for his 20th career INDYCAR win.<\/p>\n
Photo: Ryan Kemna\/TRE<\/p>\n
While Palou had the win in hand halfway through the event, the podium fight was far from over.<\/p>\n
Kyle Kirkwood ran second with six laps remaining, but fuel saving left him vulnerable. <\/p>\n
Scott McLaughlin and Christian Lundgaard, free to push, drove past and secured the final two podium spots in that order. <\/p>\n
Kirkwood sacrificed the battle to protect his championship bid and settled for fourth.<\/p>\n
McLaughlin dominated early. He led from pole until the first pit stop cycle but surrendered the lead briefly to Marcus Ericsson.<\/p>\n
Ericsson paid the price for the lead. A brush with the outside wall exiting turn ten from his cold tire defense on McLaughlin set the tone.<\/p>\n
His defense continued with an aggressive block on Marcus Armstrong heading to turn one. The move cost the second-placed qualifier, and a hard-charging Armstrong, a good chance at podium.<\/p>\n
Ericsson gave up a few spots from that move and finished sixth while his challenger Armstrong finished 11th after he overshot the corner. <\/p>\n
From there it was the Alex Palou show. Starting a career-best fourth on the street circuit, he executed a perfectly timed overcut in the first pit cycle and grabbed the lead from Ericsson on lap 39 and never looked back.<\/p>\n
A lap later, Scott Dixon brought out the second and final caution of the day. <\/p>\n
His crew failed to tighten his right-rear lugnut and the tire completely fell off the car bouncing to a halt to join its brethren tire barrier into turn four. <\/p>\n
His PNC Bank Honda sustained too much damage from the crash resulting in a 23rd-placed DNF.<\/p>\n
Dale Coyne Racing teammates converted their top six starting positions to a double top ten. Their rookie Dennis Hauger finished tenth on debut while his more experience teammate Romain Grosjean finished eighth. <\/p>\n
An impressive weekend for a team that assembled so late in the Indycar offseason.<\/p>\n
New Places Big Issues<\/p>\n
While the Dale Coyne duo shined, it was a rough start for other faces in new places. <\/p>\n
Mick Schumacher\u2019s IndyCar debut lasted only a handful of corners. Sting Ray Robb locked up his tires, slid straight into the barriers, and collected both Schumacher and Santino Ferrucci in the process.<\/p>\n
Robb continued on but was later penalized for his actions and finished six laps down in 21st. <\/p>\n
On the ensuing restart, new Team Penske driver David Malukas flat-spotted his left-front tire into the first corner. <\/p>\n
The vibration finally gave way on lap 12, forcing him to nurse the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet to pit road and concede an early lap to the leaders.<\/p>\n
Malukas recovered his lost lap after the lap 40 Dixon incident. But failed to get back inside the top ten finishing 13th overall.<\/p>\n
On lap 22, Will Power suffered rear suspension damage after a near carbon copy of his practice crash in turn ten. <\/p>\n
The carbon fiber went everywhere and the new Andretti Global driver retired from the event finishing 22nd. <\/p>\n
They can redeem themselves next week as the NTT INDYCAR Series returns to Phoenix Raceway for their joint weekend alongside the NASCAR Cup Series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla \u2014 The six month offseason did nothing to dull Alex Palou. He wins the opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[42386,79537,81121,82114,79539,82305,72189,79532,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-174205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-42386","9":"tag-alex-palou","10":"tag-christian-lundgaard","11":"tag-dale-coyne-racing","12":"tag-dennis-hauger","13":"tag-firestone-grand-prix-of-st-pete","14":"tag-ntt-indycar-series","15":"tag-scott-mclaughlin","16":"tag-st-pete","17":"tag-st-pete-headlines","18":"tag-st-pete-news","19":"tag-st-petersburg","20":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","21":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}