ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Josef Newgarden released an off-season’s worth of frustration by driving to a decisive victory in Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
It was the Team Penske driver’s 30th career IndyCar Series win, breaking a tie with another great Penske driver, Rick Mears, for 13th on the all-time victory list.
Newgarden’s No. 2 PPG Chevrolet defeated Pato O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet by 7.9121 seconds – a decisive victory to start the season.
“I don’t want to say it felt easy,” Newgarden said afterwards. “It felt comfortable today. Really, really comfortable. I had a lot of fun.
“I told myself before going into the race, I want to let it be, not overstep, and then early on in the race, I’m like, ‘I’m going. I’m not here to wait around. We’re going to win this race.’
It was even better for Team Penske as all three of its drivers finished in the top five. Scott McLaughlin, the 2022 St. Pete winner, was third in the No. 3 Chevrolet followed by teammate and two-time St. Pete winner Will Power as Chevrolet swept the top four positions.
“Just really thankful to the team for the effort they’ve put in all year,” Newgarden said. “I should say the entire off-season to get to this point. It’s been a big process for us to try and come back and be better in areas that we were weak last year, and I touched on it earlier in the weekend, but Chevrolet has done a tremendous job for us. They’re a huge part of the equation. They’re a big lift for us coming into this weekend, and I think on the team side, we’ve also lifted our game and cleaned up a lot of areas where we were maybe not at the level we needed to be.
“It all just came together today. Great start of the year. Obviously, we had strength because looking at my teammates, we’re sitting first, third and fourth. I think that’s really encouraging for the rest of the season. It doesn’t tell the whole picture, but I think it’s encouraging.”
Colton Herta of Andretti Global was the top Honda driver with a fifth-place finish.
“So, a top-five finish to start off the year – it’s overall a solid finish,” Herta said. “Obviously, we would’ve liked to have finished higher up, but given the circumstances I’m happy with fifth. We’ll try to build on that and improve.”
Defending and two-time IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou finished sixth in the No. 10 DHL Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing.
“It’s not an amazing day at the office, but I’m happy finishing two positions better than we did last year,” Palou said. “We were struggling at the start of the weekend, so it was an amazing recovery by Chip Ganassi Racing, the 10 car team, Honda, and everyone. I’m happy that we finished in the top six. It’s great, a great start. Looking forward now to Thermal, but especially the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.”
There were three caution periods for nine laps and four leads changes among three drivers. Newgarden led 92 laps in the 100-lap contest.
“I look at 17 races and I go, ‘How do we win 17 races?’” Newgarden asked. “You lose one race, and you already are you’re mourning the one race you lost. You just can’t live on that hill for that long. It gets you a little bit lonely.
“So, I’m enjoying it more, simply put. There’s not much more behind it than that.”
It was a great way to put an offseason of discontent for IndyCar behind as the largest crowd in Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg history, according to IndyCar owner Roger Penske, filled the grandstands and the viewing areas around the course.
The sun was out, the temperatures were warm and IndyCar emerged out of the cold winter gloom.
As It Happened
At the green flag to start the race, it was four-wide a few rows back including Romain Grosjean, but everyone was able to get through. Christian Lundgaard however, had a flat tire on the No. 45 Hy-Vee Honda and had to pit.
Newgarden maintained his lead on the pole position but was hounded by Rosenqvist.
It was green flag racing until lap 26 when Marcus Armstrong of Chip Ganassi Racing hit the tire barriers out of turn 10. At the time, Newgarden led Rosenqvist by 0.9652-of-a-second.
“We were fast, and we weren’t fishing, we were in good shape, and I feel terrible for the team,” Armstrong said after he ran through the marbles and that sent him into the barrier.
Herta was up to third followed by O’Ward, Marcus Ericsson and McLaughlin.
Pit lane opened, and it was a mad rush for the entire field except for Lundgaard, creating a traffic jam for service. Felix Rosenqvist was the first off pit lane, narrowly edging Herta’s Honda. Newgarden’s stop was just long enough for him to lose his advantage.
The restart was at the end of lap 30 and Lundgaard was scored the leader because he did not pit.
On lap 32, O’Ward went to the inside of Herta, pulling off a great pass as Herta was having trouble getting adhesion into tires.
Newgarden passed Rosenqvist for second on lap 33 and later on the same lap, O’Ward was able to pass Rosenqvist for position. Lundgaard was still scored as the leader but had yet to make a pit stop.
Sting Ray Robb was the reason for the second yellow flag on Lap 34 as he had to pull off course.
Lundgaard came down pit lane on lap 36 and that moved Newgarden into the lead ahead of O’Ward, Rosenqvist, McLaughlin and Herta.
The green flag waved on lap 39 with Newgarden leading O’Ward, Rosenqvist, McLaughlin and Herta.
Last year’s winner, Ericsson, had a wounded race car and drove onto pit road on lap 54. The engine cover was off as his Andretti Global crew assessed the issue in pit lane.
“It’s some kind of power issue, I don’t know if it is an engine issue,” Ericsson said. “We tried all the switches we had in the car, but no fix. We’re taking it back to investigate it more.”
Dixon had rear lockup going into turn 10, once again from the rubber pellets of “marbles” on the course, but the six-time IndyCar Series champion was able to keep it out of the wall.
Alexander Rossi and Romain Grosjean made what they hoped would be their final pit stop on lap 64. Rossi went with the “Green” alternate tires.
One lap later, Newgarden pitted as the leader. O’Ward and McLaughlin followed, both with “Green” alternates.
Herta was the leader and he pitted on lap 66. He was able to get out of pit road ahead of the rest of the field, to maintain his position. But as the field cycled after the pit stop sequence, Newgarden was the leader in front of O’Ward and Herta.
Linus Lundqvist backed his No. 8 American Legion Honda into the tire barrier on lap 68 after he was punted by Romain Grosjean in Turn 10. The yellow flag waved for the third time in the race.
Race control issued an “avoidable contact” penalty to Grosjean for his role in the Lundqvist crash.
Newgarden led the field to the green flag on lap 72 as the cars from behind started to feel the urgency to move up front. McLaughlin was in fourth place and dove to the inside of Herta in turn 10.
Grosjean would later drop out of the race on lap 86.
“We lost the drive, I went to sixth gear, and it went to neutral,” Grosjean said. “I was too gentle with some guys inside. I love this track, but it’s so hard to pass.
“I was too shy. I should have gotten more aggressive.”
Newgarden didn’t need to be aggressive because he controlled the race from start to finish.
“I think the most enjoyable part about that last 20 laps was I never turned it up,” Newgarden said of his pace. “I was like, ‘we’re hitting a number, and the number is probably getting easier.’
“We just never adjusted it. It was like, ‘let’s just go.’ By go, I mean we’re just going to keep the same program.
“That was really encouraging. That’s what I spoke about earlier. It seemed simple today to drive it fast. It’s not always like that. Sometimes you can be really fast but you’re working overtime to produce the speed.
“I wasn’t working overtime today. I was working hard but just kind of standard hard. It was just really enjoyable to be able to feel that way. I just felt in control of things in a lot of respects.”