There are many clichés appropriate to use for Sunday’s season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Some might say “the more thing change, the more things stay the same”. I’ll opt for the more musical “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. There was never much of a question in 2025 that Alex Palou was the boss of the field. The was 2026 has started, not much has changed.
Alex Palou left little doubt that he is still very much in charge in 2026, when he ran away from the field and won at the St. Petersburg opener for the second straight year.
Palou did not start from pole, but he did have his best St. Petersburg starting position (fourth). He immediately dispatched rookie Dennis Hauger from his third starting position and quietly slotted in and followed pole-sitter Scott McLaughlin and Marcus Ericsson.
After the usual Lap One melee in Turn Four caused by Sting Ray Robb and taking out Santino Ferrucci and Mick Schumacher, the Top-Three held their position to the first round of pit stops. Palou stayed out longer than those in front of him. Ericsson came out ahead of McLaughlin on Lap 38, but got into a foolish engagement with Alexander Rossi who had not even pitted yet. Ericsson was still on cold tires, as Rossi passed him with ease. He then got into a battle with McLaughlin, which slowed both of them up. As they both came around Turn One, Palou was blending in from the pits way ahead of them – and essentially assumed the lead even though some cars had yet to pit. You knew the race was over at that point, even though there were over 60 laps remaining.
You could feel a sinking feeling coming through the television, as we all saw Palou leaving Ericsson and McLaughlin in the dust. It wasn’t long before we saw a view we saw way too many times in 2025 – Alex Palou leading, with no other pursuers even in the frame. I don’t say this as a Palou hater, but you could feel a collective sigh of desperation from the IndyCar world as fans and drivers alike are fearing another Palou beatdown in another championship effectively decided by the end of June.
I keep saying this, but you can’t fault Palou. It’s his job to go out there and win every race. It’s up to the other 24 drivers to figure out how to stop him, without purposely crashing him out of every race. The thing is, Palou doesn’t even look blindingly fast. The shots during Sunday’s telecast that showed him running by himself, he looked like he was just cruising, He wasn’t flying over the curbing or coming dangerously close to grazing the wall. He just effortlessly hit his marks every single time as he glided to another victory.
Aside from the outcome that left everyone scratching their heads, It was a decent race. Kyle Kirkwood made a beautiful pass on McLaughlin shortly after the last round of pit stops. Marcus Armstrong tried a similar move earlier in the race that cost him several positions.
It was a typical season-opener that saw some come away happy with their results, while others were left wondering what might have been. Will Power’s debut weekend with his new team continued to show growing pains. He was very unhappy with his Andretti Global car on Friday. He crashed the car Saturday morning, and barely missed advancing into the second round of qualifying. In the race, he was showing promise, after starting thirteenth. But then it all went terribly wrong, as Power clipped the outside Turn Ten wall and broke his suspension. Scott Dixon had his right-rear wheel nut come loose and his free-wheeling tire ran harmlessly into the runoff area and Dixon was able to keep the car under control. Both Dixon and Power have gotten their seasons off to a horrible start.
As far as St. Petersburg races go, this one was better than most – including last season’s snooze fest. Fortunately, those that had a bad weekend can turn things around quickly, as there will be another race six days later – this time at the reconfigured 1.0-mile oval at Phoenix.
TV Coverage: Unlike last season’s opener, I thought FOX was in mid-season form. In their debut last year, there were a lot of graphic challenges that viewers were subjected to. This season, all of those wrinkles have been ironed out. The annoying graphic driver photos in the scoring column have all but vanished, although I did see a brief return during the Firestone Fast Six in Saturday’s qualifying.
Last year it took me a long time to get used to Will Buxton. Over the course of last season, he seemed to tone down his over-the-top delivery. I saw all telecasts throughout the weekend, except for the morning warm-up. Either I’ve gotten used to Buxton, or he has improved – or both. But I hardly noticed him at all this weekend – and that is a good thing.
The award for the Most Improved on-air talent has to go to Jack Harvey. After the first race last year, Harvey was getting crucified on social media. I didn’t think he was as bad as others claimed, but he was stiff, uncomfortable and obviously very nervous. Now he fits right in and is letting his keen sense of humor shine through. Kevin Lee and Georgia Henneberry both continue to show us week after week, why they are on the air. Their work is seamless and they are both total professionals.
Stellar Start: Be honest, how many people had both Dale Coyne cars making the Firestone Fast Six on Saturday, then both finishing in the Top-Ten on Sunday? When we last saw Dale Coyne, they were finishing a dreadful season with Jacob Abel in one car, and in the process of losing Rinus VeeKay in the other. To rub salt in the wounds, VeeKay didn’t go to a premier team like Penske or Ganassi – he left Coyne for Juncos Hollinger Racing, a team many considered a notch or two below Coyne.
Dennis Hauger was confirmed for one car, with backing from Andretti Global, but the other car did not have Romain Grosjean confirmed until just a couple of weeks ago. It doesn’t hurt that engineers Michael Cannon and Bill Pappas have returned to the team, but I don’t think anyone saw this coming. Dale Coyne could be in store to gave one of their best seasons ever, with a strong engineering program, a savvy veteran driver and a talented young rookie. This will be fun to watch.
Stumbles at the Gate: Two teams have allocated more resources and personnel over the last season or two and had high hopes for a breakout 2026 season. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing have made many offseason hires. Team President Jay Frye have added Brian Barnhart and Ricardo Nault, along with Gavin Ward and even Ryan Briscoe as their Driving Coach. The addition of driver Mick Schumacher, along with Louis Foster and Graham Rahal has also brought a lot of added attention to this once-proud team. Louis Foster had the best weekend, qualifying ninth and finishing fourteenth. Graham Rahal started and finished eighteenth. Mick Schumacher started twenty-first and finished twenty-fifth in his first outing with his new team. Ouch!
ECR, formerly known as Ed Carpenter Racing, added Ted Gelov to the ownership group. He has brought Java House and Splenda as automatic sponsors and a huge cash infusion to the team. All of this took place last year, but everyone was pointing to 2026 before we would see actual results on the track. Early testing results at Sebring and Phoenix looked promising and everyone was talking about an Alexander Rossi resurgence.
As recently as Saturday morning, Rossi was looking strong. His teammate, Christian Rasmussen, crashed in the Saturday morning practice, but had shown speed. After a disappointing qualifying session for both, ECR left St. Petersburg with a sixteenth-place finish for Rossi and a nineteenth-place finish for Rasmussen.
The first race of the season does not spell doom & gloom for either team, and they have a chance to get back on track this weekend at Phoenix. I would think that ECR has the better change to improve their standings. They do well on ovals, and Rossi has raced there before. For the Rahal team, we’ve seen their recent performance on ovals. I’m not sure they will see much improvement in their fortunes next weekend.
Drop the Box: This has been a complaint of mine before, but since “Drive to Survive” became popular a few years ago drivers, teams and even media have integrated more and more of the F1 lexicon into our IndyCar verbiage. Friday’s Practice One has suddenly become Free Practice One or FP1. Even more annoying than that has been the practice of substituting the word Box for Pit. On Fridays practice broadcast (FP1), I heard James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell each refer to when a driver “boxed”. I was relieved when I did not hear it on either of the Saturday broadcasts, but I heard Bell use the term Box once on the Sunday broadcast.
I’ve been listening to IndyCar telecasts since the 60s, and I never heard anyone in USAC, CART, IRL, Champ Car or IndyCar use the term Box until very recently. It seems to all stem from an inferiority complex of some sort, where everyone wants to make IndyCar as close to F1 as possible. If you are watching an IndyCar race, the area where a car gets refueled and gets new tires is called the pits. It’s called Pit Lane. When a driver hears “Pit, pit, pit!”, that is their cue to go down pit lane to their respective pit. Leave the box in F1 where it belongs.
Marcus Was Right: The question is,,,which Marcus? On Lap 66, Marcus Ericsson and Marcus Armstrong were in a tight battle for third behind Palou and McLaughlin. As they headed to Turn One down the main straightaway, it appeared that Ericsson blocked Armstrong and tried to run him down all the way to the inside wall. Armstrong eventually got past Ericsson, but carried too much speed into the corner and went way wide, allowing Ericsson to get the position back, and was also passed by the two McLaren cars of Pato O’Ward and Christian Lundgaard.
Upon further review, Ericsson actually moved to the right first – before Armstrong made his move. After the race, David Land interviewed both parties. Marcus Armstrong insisted that if the stewards did not fine Armstrong, something was wrong. Marcus Ericsson, however, insisted he was pushing the limits of the rules, but did not break them. He said it was legal. After watching the video over and over, I have concluded that it was Marcus Ericsson who was right.
Drive of the Day: This coveted award is not always determined by who made up the most positions. I also look at how much adversity a driver had to overcome and other circumstances. In this case – it was the driver who made up the most positions throughout the race – Josef Newgarden, who started twenty-third and finished seventh.
After a disastrous qualifying effort on Saturday, Newgarden’s body language suggested he had already written off the weekend. However, that’s not what champions do. He found it somewhere deep inside to do whatever it took to work his way to the front. He didn’t win, but finishing seventh in the opening race of the season is a lot better than twenty-third. Headed to a short oval this weekend, I think Newgarden will be pleased with his position in the points by Saturday night; but probably not as pleased as winning the coveted Oilpressure.com Drive of the Day.
All in All: It’s always good to knock the dust off of the cars and get the season started after a six-month offseason. It’s even better when the race is halfway decent, which this race was. Even if it was a snoozer like last year’s opener, it’s always good to see shiny race cars running in competition.
We have gotten a sign that Alex Palou has no intention of letting up. Last year he won the first two races of the season and five of the first six. With an oval he has never been on coming up this weekend, I don’t think he will win Race Two, so that should even the playing field somewhat.
But it’s good to get a race under our belt for 2026, with several more in the coming weeks. As Palou said as he crossed the finish line on Sunday; “We are so back!”
George Phillips
Oilpressure 