Alex Palou Returns To Victory Lane At St. Petersburg In Dominating Fashion
- Kylar Boggs
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Reigning series champion Alex Palou is no stranger to victory lane as he wins the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg to kick off the NTT Indycar Series season. Palou wins in St. Petersburg for the second year in a row, and claims his 20th career win in his 99th start in the series. The Spaniard is also the first driver since Sebastien Bourdais in 2017-2018 to win the first race of the season in back-to-back years.
However, as Palou cruised to a dominant victory, there was chaos throughout the field in today's grand prix. On the opening lap, Sting Ray Robb locked up the front tires heading into turn 4 and went into the tire barrier, collecting Santino Ferrucci, and rookie Mick Schumacher bringing out the full course yellow. Ferrucci and Schumacher's days were done due to the damage they recieved in the incident, but Sting Ray Robb was able to continue.
Not long after, the race got back underway and Robb recieved a penalty from race control for avoidable contact. On the restart, David Malukas locked up the front left tire heavily, and shortly after receieved a puncture and had to slowly nurse his Verizon Chevy back to the pitlane but was able to continue.
In addition on lap 24, Will Power on his new team with Andretti Global goes into the pit lane due to a damaged rear suspension after colliding with the wall, making his debut with his new team, a weekend to put behind them.
Later on, the first cycle of pit stops began on lap 36 with race leader Scott McLaughlin the first of many to head into the pit lane. The lap after Marcus Ericsson pitted and did the overcut on McLaughlin and was able to stay ahead. Meanwhile, Marcus Armstrong was able to breifly overcut both Ericsson and McLaughlin when he pitted but coming out of the pit lane Ericsson made a brave move into turn 4 and got ahead of Armstrong. While all of that was going on, Alex Palou was able to run enough laps in clean air and take the lead of the race.
The trouble didn't stop there as on lap 40, Scott Dixon lost his right rear tire heading into turn 4, ending his day. On Dixon's pit stop, the rear tire changer had issues getting the wheel nut tightened on the PNC Bank Honda as the car was dropped for Dixon to be released from his pit box.
Furthermore, on lap 64, McLaughlin gets a good exit out of the final corner, and is able to make the pass on Ericsson moving up into the second position. The battle for 3rd heated up as Ericsson threw a heavy block on Marcus Armstrong, making Armstrong go deep into turn 1, losing positions to the McLarens of Christian Lundgaard and Pato O' Ward.
Ericsson continued to struggle while staying out on track and due to this, Kyle Kirkwood and his team made the decision to go for the undercut to get ahead of everyone in the fight for third. With the decision of the undercut of Kyle Kirkwood, he was able to get by Scott McLaughlin and up into second.
With 12 laps to go, fuel became an issue for Kirkwood as he was forced to save fuel in order to make it to the end of the race. In the closing laps, Scott McLaughlin goes for the move on Kirkwood into turn 10 to reclaim second place and shortly after, Christian Lundgaard gets by the Andretti driver, putting himself in the final podium position in third place.
Coming to the checkered flag, Alex Palou wins the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in dominating fashion leading 59 of the 100 laps. Joining him on the podium were Scott McLaughlin after starting the race from pole position, finishing in 2nd, and in 3rd was Christian Lundgaard with another strong result since joining McLaren last season.
Next Saturday the NTT Indycar Series heads to the first oval race of the season at Phoenix Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona.
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