Dre’s Race Review – IndyCar’s 2025 GP of St. Petersburg

“How the f*** does he keep doing this?” – Dre Harrison, 30 laps to go

Because of course, my first weekend back is an enormous double-header weekend, and that’s not including the series I don’t normally cover! (Please forgive me WEC fans with Qatar’s 1812km, and NASCAR’s solid return to COTA tonight.)

You know the drill, I am referring to IndyCar and its season opener, the 2025 GP of St. Petersberg, and while the street circuit is always good at throwing up some jeopardy, this time a surprisingly tactical race broke out between Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing, and… *checks notes*, oh not again!

Palou’d

It’s my own fault. After half a decade of Palou screaming out loud that he was IndyCar’s new phenom, I still don’t quite fully buy it when he’s plotting another creative way to beat you. 

Palou was anonymous for most of the weekend. He didn’t qualify particularly well, finishing P8 and not making the Fast 6. He wasn’t even at the front of the queue when the race’s major flashpoint happened. Surprise, it was another Lap 1 incident over Turn 3, which we’ve affectionately nicknamed at St Pete the bump of poor judgement. 

McLaren’s Nolan Siegel checks up in the middle of the pack as he drives over said bump, and Will Power can’t react in time to the concertina effect, hitting the back of Siegel’s car, with them both spinning into the wall, and RLL’s Louis Foster being taken out with them. It shook the field up because four of the five leaders were running on the harder compound, Primary tyre, with one of the big discussion points entering St Pete was that the Alternate was going to be a riskier, softer spec, akin to 2023. The game plan here was to run the green tyre for as little time as they could afford. All the front runners who started on the Alternate peeled into the pits as soon as they could. 

Colton Herta was the leader of the clubhouse of those who switched, but his race was derailed by yet another Andretti failing, via a bad pitstop where his right rear tyre refused to be attached, and then a fuelling problem meant an extra run through the pits. Herta would end up on the winning strategy and it’s another frustrating race that Andretti’s blown via their shortcomings. 

Pole sitter Scott McLaughlin was always in a bit of trouble starting on the Primary and not wanting to give up track position until he had to, and after that, we were left with a three-car leading group of Josef Newgarden in a CGR sandwich of Scott Dixon and Alex Palou. It looked like Dixon was in the driver’s seat, but it turns out his radio wasn’t working, and it was the perfect opportunity for Alex Palou to undercut his teammate, hit his fuel mark, have a brilliant outlap, and come out five seconds in front of Newgarden. 

I honestly don’t know how Palou keeps doing this. He has the fuel-saving ability of Dixon, the raw speed of a Penske, and Barry Wanser once again called a brilliant strategy to take the lead. And despite Sting Ray Robb grabbing some TV time by defending his right to be on the lead lap, Palou held his nerve under Newgarden’s late pressure to stay in front and take the win, with Josef losing second to Dixon on the final lap with the American short on fuel. 

Career Win #12 for Alex Palou and his first win on the Streets of St Pete. This is a track where it’s notoriously hard to overtake, he started from eighth on the grid, and he out-strategised Penske, the dominant force there to win yet another race where all the elite runners tripped over themselves. It’s a classic AP10 pantsing operation and early doors, he’s taken control of the Championship. Dixon is Dixon, always in play when the opportunity presents itself, and Newgarden will take some solace in his best Road and Street course result since Road America last year. 

McLaughlin will be annoyed having really done nothing wrong and ending up fourth after being forced into the inferior strategy, and Kyle Kirkwood had yet another quietly excellent run in 5th. 

What Did The FOX Say?

The other major story coming into the race weekend was seeing how FOX’s first race would hold up for IndyCar, and the overall results were… mixed. 

Let’s get the big positives out of the way – I like the new theme song, Motley Crue is very solid. For the most part, the visual presentation was solid, if a little 2000s-esque with the typeface. A bit of “Crystal Maze” for me, but fine. 

Will Buxton as an anchor was… different. I’ve told friends this, but I think as IndyCar fans, we’ve been a little spoilt by what Leigh Diffey brought to the series. He mixed being a naturally good anchor who could dictate the conversation and own the commentary box but also brought an incredible amount of energy to his calls, and when the action is great, you feed off that energy. 

Leigh Diffey broadcasts while in the middle of a skydive, injecting Pipeline Punch Monster Energy directly into his eyeballs. Will Buxton sits you down with a warm cocoa and a blanket. There’s nothing wrong with those things, it’s just a different style of broadcast to get used to. Buxton is calmer, a little bit slicker with his vocab and delivery, and he sometimes felt like that third wheel trying to figure out where to sit on the bench while the actual couple starts making out.

This isn’t a huge problem for me, the first broadcast is always going to be the trickiest, and it’s been years since Buxton had this much to juggle on a broadcast. It’ll get easier, the trio will find their feet and play off each other better, that’s natural. This was fine, just not special. Yet. The same goes for Jack Harvey as a pit reporter, who struggled a bit, but again, the first one’s always the toughest. It’s going to be noticeable when you just don’t have the experience that Jamie Little and Kevin Lee have, who are excellent. 

My biggest gripe was with the timing tower and the race graphics. The art portraits of the drivers were a little weird and could be adjusted in time, but I don’t see what purpose it served over just having unedited driver pictures. 

Some of it I like, the overall Industrial feel and the caution ticker tape, nice touches. But it just didn’t work over the weekend. Friday and Saturday they were littered with bugs, glitches, and several minutes where the whole tower had to be taken down and manually reset because times were either wrong, not updating, or were updating but in the wrong order. It was genuinely jarring. No Push to Pass info on screen was ungood too.

And another thing about it, why is it that International viewers are getting short-changed? I’ve watched their feeds via Sky Sports and on their website’s streaming page and for some reason, the US are getting 3, sometimes 4 decimal places on their tower, and we’re only getting 2. There was an instance in Qualifying when McLaughlin made the Fast 6 and it looked like he’d tied with Marcus Ericsson but only because McLaughlin’s time was rounded up to 2 decimal places. It’s stupid, completely unnecessary and there’s no good reason for this to exist.

FOX hasn’t got an excuse like they’re new to racing. They’ve had NASCAR for donkey’s years, they know how to stitch a broadcast template together, and even for a first weekend, this was unacceptable. 

Overall, not a bad first effort, and I look forward to seeing the improvements, because there’s definitely room for it.

The Lightning Round

What won it for Palou in the end? A 32-lap stint in the middle period on scrubbed primary tyres, against everyone else on a new set, and yet his pace was still good enough to stay with the leaders while going just as long. Alex Palou is an astonishing talent, its as simple as that.

SCOTT DIXON FINISHED SECOND WITH NO RADIO ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME

Pato O’Ward did a decent job salvaging 11th from a horrible qualifying effort and a puncture in the early going, but it was Christian Lundgaard who did well to make Q3 and finish eighth in his Papaya debut, on a track where McLaren never really looked like winning. Good effort.

Typical Meyer Shank Racing – Superb in qualifying with Felix Rosenqvist in third and Marcus Armstrong a career-best fourth, only to drop off in the race again. Seventh is still a good day for Felix, but we know he’s capable of more, and Armstrong ruined an easy Top 8 with a run into the wall and a parked car. *sigh*

19th and 20th on debut for Prema Racing. Not too bad for a first showing and roughly where they need to be. I like it.

Rinus Veekay very quietly was probably the driver of the day with a 9th on debut with Dale Coyne Racing. Supreme driving and exactly what that team needs. 

The Rating – 6/10 (Decent): For St Pete, not bad. It still has all the usual St Pete problems, it’s a shrunk-down Monza with not many places to pass in cars that have outgrown it. (We’re down to low 59-second laps here), but I did enjoy the intensity of the finish and the more tactical race that played out. Newgarden and Dixon had a fun final fight for second too. This was a decent race, which will make you want more. See you in three weeks at The Thermal Club.