Josef Newgarden cruised. Literally, the Nashville, Tennessee native picked up his 30th career win after securing the pole position on Saturday. Newgarden finished nearly 8 seconds in front of 2nd Place finisher Pato O’Ward and Penske Teammate Scott McLaughlin. In fact, Penske had a great day finishing P1, P3, and P4. Newgarden praised Chevy, saying that they did not have the speed on street and road courses last year, and that was a big focus during the offseason. Newgarden, who won the Indy 500 last year, didn’t find much success outside of ovals last season and vowed to change that this season. He deleted all of his followers on social media and has turned his focus solely to his family and racing, at least for race one, which has paid off, as Newgarden led 92 of the 100 laps.
Opening Laps
The race started off relatively pain-free. However, Christian Lundgaard cut a tire, and while he did lead a couple laps off-cycle, it cost him the race. The first caution came on lap 26 at turn 10, which proved to be a problem spot for Marcus Armstrong most of the day. Armstrong, in his first full season, said he wasn’t sure what caused the issue. “We weren’t really pushing at this stage–I hit the brakes and just locked the rear immediately. I felt I hit the same spot as the previous 20-odd laps, but I was so disappointed because we were fast and we weren’t pushing.” Sting Ray Robb had issues on lap 34, as well as brake problems, which forced him to retire early.
Middle Of The Race
New Andretti Global Marcus Ericsson, who won last year’s St. Pete Grand Prix, had problems on lap 53 as he had just started losing positions. “It’s some kind of power issue, but I’m not sure if it’s an engine or electrical. It went to half power, we tried all the switches, and we’re taking it back and investigating more.” It was later revealed that an air filter issue caused the car to lose power. With 32 laps to go, new Juncos Hollinger driver Romain Grosjean spun out Linus Lundqvist again in turn ten and would get a drive-thru penalty. Grosjean owned up to it saying “It was my fault I was too shy I should have gone more over and been too aggressive on cold tires.” Grosjean, himself would have mechanical issues and end up having to retire early.
Movers & Shakers
Defending Indycar champ Alex Palou moved from 13th to 6th. Palou said it was hard with everyone using very similar strategies. “Starting 13th after bad qualifying, we couldn’t do much with strategy.” Pietro Fittipaldi won the Jostens Biggest Mover award as he surged from 26th to 15th. Kyffin Simpson also had a great, quiet day. The rookie started 23rd and ended 14th. Felix Rosenqvist finished sixth after starting second, but for the new Meyer-Shank driver, the top ten had to feel good. MSR has struggled to be competitive in the last few seasons. Arrow-McLaren’s Alex Rossi had a quiet day but slowly moved through the pack, starting 15th and finishing 8th but holding off a hard-charging Scott Dixon in the final lap.
Next Up
Indycar heads out to The Thermal Club in Thermal, California, three hours northeast of San Diego, for the $1 million challenge in a non-points race on March 24th at 12:30 Eastern Time on Peacock and NBC.
Final Standings
1 Josef Newgarden
2 Pato O’Ward
3 Scott McLaughlin
4 Will Power
5 Colton Herta
6 Alex Palou
7 Felix Rosenqvist
8 Alexander Rossi
9 Scott Dixon
10 Rinus VeeKay
11 Santino Ferrucci
12 Kyle Kirkwood
13 Callum Ilott
14 Kyffin Simpson
15 Pietro Fittipaldi
16 Graham Rahal
17 Tom Blomqvist
18 Agustin Canapino
19 Jack Harvey
20 Christian Lundgaard
21 Christian Rasmussen
22 Colin Braun
23 Linus Lundqvist
24 Romain Grosjean
25 Marcus Ericsson
26 Sting Ray Robb
27 Marcus Armstrong
Image: Pato O’Ward, Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Firehawk – Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg – By: Joe Skibinski
