Palou began the defense of the title by returning to the domain of Newgarden

The American Josef Newgarden (Team Penske), the king of the ovals, showed in St. Petersburg (Florida) that this year he seeks the IndyCar championship and that he has improved on urban circuits, winning this Sunday the first grand prix of the season dominating it from start to finish.

In second position finished the Mexican Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren), who had a good start to the season and was third in the classification, while the Spaniard Álex Palou (Chip Ganassi), current IndyCar champion, finished sixth place from thirteenth when it started.

The Catalan, with his new yellow and red DHL, planned a brilliant race and without taking any risks from the back, pure approach and waiting for the opportunity for the yellow and the pit stop in addition to taking advantage of his skill and quality behind the wheel.

The podium was completed by New Zealander Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske).

An unusually calm start

It was a clean start, no incidents, nothing to do with what happened in the 2023 edition. O’Ward consolidated his place in the top positions by placing fourth And Palou faced the challenge from thirteenth place .

The pace set by Newgarden and Felix Rosenqvist (Meyer Shank) in the lead was very high. There was no big news or movement in the first quarter of the race: the first 25 laps were far from the show of surprises that an IndyCar race usually represents.

But the essence always returns and the first yellow flag came on lap 27 with Marcus Armstrong’s Chip Ganassi taking one of the protections, forcing him to abandon and, fortunately, without consequences for the others cars that managed to avoid him.

Obviously everyone will take advantage of that first yellow to go through the pits. The speed of the rival mechanic hurt Newgarden, who fell behind Rosenqvist and Colton Herta (Andretti): both passed him and blocked the Penske at the exit of the track.

Dane Christian Lundgaard (Rahal Letterman) sacrificed his pit time in exchange for leading the race by several laps, acting as a stopper for the fastest and bringing all the drivers closer together.

Palou and O’Ward ask for passage

O’Ward did his thing on lap 31, overtaking a Herta that was losing positions at great risk. The Mexican regained fourth place and later third.

It was time to take a risk for Newgarden, with new tires, to try to reach the race leader again. With Lundgaard returning to his natural position, Newgarden took the lead, with O’Ward close behind him in second place and behind Rosenqvist and McLaughlin chasing them down by less than a second.

Then the Swede, Marcus Ericsson, champion in St. Pete in 2023. His Andretti was losing power and positions, he went through the pits but they couldn’t fix it.

Later came the blow to the champion’s table, a Palou who took the risk of not stopping to change a tire when everyone else did with 36 laps to go. That’s when he was seen higher than ever, leader of the race, leading those points that IndyCar has for anyone leading by a point.

Once he sacrificed his visit to the mechanics, he was in seventh position and only a few seconds from first. It’s time to continue climbing the ranks. Meanwhile, he continues to be left alone on the track, and Linus Lundqvist (Chip Ganassi) also nails his car at the exact same point where Armstrong did it before: the same curve for the same yellow flag that regrouped the race .

The Argentine Agustín Canapino (Juncos Hollinger), who has always remained in the top twenty, caused a scare with 18 laps remaining, leaving the track but showing his experience behind the wheel by recovering the direction of the car and returning to the race .

He finished eighteenth and scored, something his new teammate, Frenchman Romain Grosjean, was unable to achieve when he retired.

Newgarden had no options on his rivals and each of the last ten laps was to extend his advantage, which reached more than six seconds. The battle was for second place between O’Ward and McLaughlin, who finished in the same order. EF