privacy policy<\/a>.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nPalou spoke to Alex Wollf of IndyCar Radio post-race. \u201cHonestly it was on rails today. The #10 car was unbelievable. It felt like those Firestones kept on giving me grip and I could continue pushing. So, it was one of the best cars I\u2019ve ever driven. It\u2019s impressive that this team at CGR is able to keep on raising the bar. Keep on making small changes that make a big difference on track. Nothing I can say about the group that is around me. They make me look very good on track.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wollf asked Palou how he managed to maintain his first stint on the alternate red tires. \u201cIt was tough, it was not easy especially on the used alternates from yesterday qualifying, I had to take care of them. At the end, they were just gone. But everything was great for us. I think there was some other people struggling a bit more than us and we could get a cushion of 5-6 seconds that gave us everything today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pole-sitter Scott McLaughlin lost the lead after Palou was able to extend his first stint while holding off Marcus Ericsson and Marcus Armstrong during the green-flag pitstop exchanges. McLaughlin would end up finishing second with Christian Lundgaard completing the podium.<\/p>\n
There were two cautions in total. Sting Ray Robb crashed on the opening lap, taking out Santino Ferrucci and Mick Schumacher along with him. Later, Kyffin Simpson made contact with Christian Rasmussen resulting a single-car spin. Will Power made contact with the wall, ending his Andretti Global debut early. David Malukas had a similar incident but was able to continue. Scott Dixon had an early retirement due to the right-rear tire not being attached after a routine pitstop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Newgarden was the biggest mover of the race finishing 7th\u00a0after starting 23rd. Dennis Hauger was the highest finishing rookie finishing 10th after starting an impressive third.<\/p>\n
The official results of the 2026 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
#10 Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#3 Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#7 Christian Lundgaard (Arrow McLaren \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#27 Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti Global \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#5 Pato O\u2019Ward (Arrow McLaren \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#28 Marcus Ericsson (Andretti Global \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#2 Josef Newgarden (Team Penske \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#18 Romain Grosjean (Dale Coyne Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#76 Rinus VeeKay (Juncos Hollinger Racing \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#19 Dennis Hauger (Dale Coyne Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#66 Marcus Armstrong (Meyer Shank Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#60 Felix Rosenqvist (Meyer Shank Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#12 David Malukas (Team Penske \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#45 Louis Foster (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#8 Kyffin Simpson (Chip Ganassi Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#20 Alexander Rossi (Ed Carpenter Racing \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#4 Caio Collet (A.J. Foyt Enterprises \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#15 Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#21 Christian Rasmussen (Ed Carpenter Racing \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#6 Nolan Siegel (Arrow McLaren \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#77 Sting Ray Robb (Juncos Hollinger Racing \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#26 Will Power (Andretti Global \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#9 Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
#14 Santino Ferrucci (A.J. Foyt Enterprises \u2013 Chevrolet)<\/p>\n
#47 Mick Schumacher (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing \u2013 Honda)<\/p>\n
Round 2 of the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series is the Good Ranchers 250 from the Phoenix Raceway on Saturday, March 7, at 3:00PM ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palou dominates, leading 59 of 100 laps for his first win of 2026 season. Palou joins elite group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-174312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174312","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=174312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"AUTO:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/17723975885161.jpg\")
Source: Icon Sportswire \/ Getty<\/p>\n