Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is back. Here's what you need to know
Earplug alert: The area's turbocharged rite of spring has returned, bringing horsepower and high drama to the streets of downtown St. Pete.
The 21st annual Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg — the first race of the NTT IndyCar Series season — is set for Sunday, but the roar of 2.2-liter, twin-turbo V6 engines will resonate most of the week. A slew of ancillary events (qualifying, testing, a 5K, fan events) will precede the actual racing, making our waterside the open-wheel epicenter for the next several days.
Here's the lowdown on what has evolved into our own Super Bowl with skid marks.
Amid practices and qualifying runs, eight races in five different series will be held Friday-Sunday, highlighted by the 100-lap Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, starting Sunday at 12:29 p.m. The other races are part of IndyCar's various developmental series, including Indy NXT (the open-wheel equivalent of Triple-A baseball) and USF Pro 2000 (a rung below Indy NXT). The entire race, qualifying and practice schedule can be found at gpstpete.com.
The 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street course again will feature The Dali Museum and Duke Energy Center for the Arts (Mahaffey Theater) as backdrops, and extend onto the Albert Whitted Airport runway. Minimum track width is 26 feet, maximum is 63. The front straight is 2,350 feet or four-tenths of a mile long. Track construction involves 20 million pounds of concrete and 25,000 feet of chain-link spectator fencing, according to IndyCar.
The broadcast partner, for one. Late last year, IndyCar announced a multiyear media rights agreement with Fox, which will broadcast all 17 series races live. Sunday's telecast starts at noon. Practice and qualifying sessions will air live on FS1 or FS2.
Drivers, start your hybrids
For the first time in St. Pete, the cars will be equipped with Honda- and Chevrolet-designed hybrid power units, which were introduced midway through the 2024 season.
Rather than relying on heavy batteries to store energy, IndyCar uses ultracapacitors. While not holding quite as much power, they're lighter and provide quick, powerful boosts, which can be deployed by drivers similar to the existing push-to-pass button. The units fit snugly inside the existing chassis from Dallara and offer plus-120 horsepower, according to IndyCar.
'I think it's interesting,' 2021 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg winner Colton Herta said.
'It kind of adds a little bit more for us to play with. It makes it a little bit more of a handful inside the cockpit, so I think it's going to be interesting to see how they take it to the streets of St. Pete. It's definitely not an easy thing to work with, so it will take a little bit of time to kind of affect that track. I think this will be one of the tougher tracks to use it at.'
Au revoir, Andretti
For the first time this event's history, iconic owner Michael Andretti won't have a conspicuous race-day presence. Last fall, the 62-year-old stepped down as CEO of Andretti Global, which has three Grand Prix entrants (Herta, Marcus Ericcson, Kyle Kirkwood).
His departure seems a natural part of Andretti Global's evolution from racing team to sprawling business (now owned by an investment firm), with teams in several series (IndyCar, IMSA, Formula E and soon-to-be Formula 1). Andretti Global now has a restructured ownership dynamic that reportedly has secured increased funding and resources, allowing it to concentrate even more on the three IndyCar entrants.
Herta hits century mark
Though still a few weeks shy of his 25th birthday, Herta — who once resided in Belleair — will be making his 100th IndyCar start. Herta enters the weekend with some momentum, earning two victories and three poles in 2024 after totaling one win the previous two seasons.
'It does seem a little crazy,' he said. 'I did not think at that age I'd have that many starts, so it's super cool to kind of think of that stat. I feel very fortunate, a lot of guys don't even get to that stat in their whole career. So to hit that mark is super special for me, and I can't wait for the next 100.'
A run for redemption?
Weeks after apparently winning the 2024 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Josef Newgarden had the title stripped, with the championship awarded to runnerup Pato O'Ward.
After an intense review, IndyCar determined that Team Penske (to which Newgarden belongs) 'manipulated the overtake system' to let its trio illegally use the push-to-pass system on starts and restarts. IndyCar doesn't allow cars to use that feature until they reach the alternate start-finish line on restarts.
Newgarden, who went on to win the Indy 500 less than three months later, appears poised to redeem himself this weekend. He and teammate Will Power were the top two performers earlier this month at the NTT IndyCar Group Test at Sebring International Raceway.
Power had the fastest overall lap (52.2549 seconds) in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, followed by Newgarden (52.3191) in the No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet.
Friday through Sunday, downtown
Main race: 12:29 Sunday TV: Fox
More info: Tickets, parking, event schedule and more at gpstpete.com
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Indianapolis Star
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- Indianapolis Star
Where 'playing more offense' makes sense in IndyCar, why Zak Brown's other suggestions don't
Lost in the emotion and vitriol that has emanated from Zak Brown's comments to select assembled media at the Detroit Grand Prix is this: The McLaren Racing CEO's believes Penske Entertainment needs to take bigger swings, and in some cases, risks, in the way in which it steers the IndyCar ship. His ideas — ranging from suggesting IndyCar launch its seasons on the Saturday of the Daytona 500, to challenging the sport's owners to spend big on new events in major markets (particularly on the east coast) and suggesting that less may be more on IndyCar's grid — are no doubt out of the box, and they range from problematic (making some racing media choose between covering Daytona or St. Pete is a losing battle) to grandiose and cruel. One thing they also do: Challenge a status quo that many in the IndyCar paddock believe publicly and privately haven't been pushed enough in the five-plus years since Roger Penske took ownership. It's not to say things haven't changed since 2019. Not only does the schedule have notable updates, but the Indianapolis 500 is back booming again, the grid is meaningfully larger and IndyCar appears to be with a network willing to pull out all the stops and push the needle to help it reach heights not seen in decades. But to many in the paddock, Brown included, the sport continues to operate on the defensive. In some ways, it's a product of a pre-Penske past where the sport was stuck in neutral and is simultaneously trying to play catch-up while also attempting to innovate and break the mold. Next year's Arlington Grand Prix is the latest Penske Entertainment project aimed at trying something big and new and different (at least for this racing series). Past projects like IndyCar's long-awaited video game project (now dormant), a concert-filled doubleheader at Iowa Speedway (no headlining concerts any more), a downtown Nashville street race (which has moved to an oval 40 minutes outside downtown) and the launch of hybrid technology (which was many times delayed, had a new engine formula axed and which has negatively impacted the racing product) lay in its wake. The Penske Corp.'s shift of the Detroit area street race from Belle Isle to downtown Detroit alleviated a longtime rift with a segment of the community concerned of its impact on the park, and it's made the event more accessible to the general public and a hotbed for Penske hospitality customers, but many drivers haven't been quiet as to their thoughts of racing on the "Mickey Mouse circuit." Racing at The Thermal Club, too, has proved a lightning rod topic, and the resurrection of IndyCar racing at the Milwaukee Mile is an endeavor too early in its reboot to suggest whether it'll have long-term legs or not. 'We need to play more offense, and sometimes we play too much defense,' Brown said. ''Cost savings, cost savings, cost savings.' At some point, you've gotta say, 'I want to spend more to make more.' 'There's a difference between sustaining the sport and covering some losses and picking a number, let's say $100 million, and going and doing something like what (F1 owners Liberty Media) did around Las Vegas. Even though that race isn't profitable today, it brought in a ton of new sponsors and got you a more lucrative TV contract.' Unlike so many team bosses in the sport, Brown comes at what he does with a marketing-first brain. In another life, Brown would've taken the IndyCar CEO job offered to him in May 2013 by then-Hulman & Co. CEO Mark Miles, who's now the president and CEO of Penske Entertainment, but instead, his burgeoning sports marketing firm took him to England and, in 2018, he was tapped to take over the reins of McLaren Racing as its CEO. In less than seven years, he transformed an F1 team with a largely blank racecar experiencing some of its worst results in its decades' long history into World Constructors' Champions. Approaching the halfway point of this season, his two drivers are locked into a head-to-head battle for the World Drivers' Championship while McLaren the runaway favorites to win the Constructors' title again. Both in business as well as sport, Brown views winning as the primary target at all costs, for better or worse, and that goal, particularly when pursued by a program in flux, comes with the suggestion of wholesale changes. When it comes to IndyCar, along with spending sizable sums of Penske's money and taking risks on new races in a couple major cities across the country, Brown's vision for change is a slightly smaller, more exclusive sport filled with more high-energy events and high-powered cars exactly at a time where demand ideally will be rising. So what do some of Browns ideas look like in reality? Let's dive in. In short, finding a way to shrink IndyCar's grid — the idea of Brown's that far-and-away drew the most ire — is the toughest to imagine happening anytime soon, at least at the levels he suggested. It's not something Brown hasn't suggested before, but it comes less than a year after Penske Entertainment handed out 25 charters to the 10 teams competing last year in IndyCar. Though the fine print of the charter remains largely shrouded in secrecy, we know teams were given a max of three per team, leading to Chip Ganassi Racing dropping two cars from its fleet. New for 2025, IndyCar welcomed two unchartered full-time entries to the grid from Prema Racing, making for 27 cars on the grid at non-Indy 500 races — said to be the max field size. Should any more cars show up, the event would see bumping to get into the field for the first time outside the 500 in recent memory. As the grid sits, the easiest way to trim the grid would be for Prema to purchase one or two charters from current holders, slimming the grid back down to 25. But Brown said he'd like to see things scaled back further, suggesting grid sizes from 20 to 24 could make for a more competitive grid top to bottom and lower the supply at a time when demand is rising. In his view, the charter system solidified the status quo — basically allowing for all cars that had been on the grid for several years (minus Ganassi's fourth and fifth) while allowing for the addition of Prema that had been agreed to before the charter system was launched. 'Just a passenger hitting the wall': Robert Shwartzman's Indy 500 fairly tale ends Would it have been tough to tell Dale Coyne, Brad Hollinger and Ricardo Juncos or the powers that be at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing that one of their cars wouldn't be granted a charter come 2025? Undoubtedly, and I'm not sure how you make those distinctions, either. It's no secret Coyne has for several years now had at least one (and last year both) its cars mired at or near the bottom of the Entrants Championship, but they now have a driver sitting 16th in points who was 10th before a pair of back-to-back DNFs. RLL has two cars on the outside looking in of the Leaders Circle chase for the time being — a tough look for a team that occasionally can fight for poles and wins and has been around the sport for decades. Both JHR cars are near the bottom, but both have also finished in the top-10 this year, and Arrow McLaren's Nolan Siegel is still in his first full season in IndyCar and 12 months ago was a serious Indy NXT title contender. So far this year, 24 of the 27 full-time cars have logged top-15 finishes, with 22 of them having finished in the top 10 at least once (all but both Prema cars, RLL's two cars near the bottom and Coyne's Jacob Abel). Across the entire 2024 season, all 27 cars nabbed top 15s, and 23 finished in the top 10 — 21 of those cars having secured at least two top 10s. Two-thirds of the field finished in the top 5 at least once, and 14 finished on the podium. Knowing that Penske Entertainment ultimately is the owner of all 25 IndyCar charters, I imagine there's some (or likely multiple) mechanisms with which the series owner could yank them back, but I don't know how much benefit you're getting from telling Dale Coyne, one of your longest-tenured team owners, that his No. 51 car no longer has a guaranteed spot each weekend. A move like that very well might put Coyne's other car in a tenuous spot, and if you try doing that to multiple low-performing two-car teams, you could be without a couple cars who with the right circumstances can legitimately run inside the top 10 a couple times a year. Yes, those cars aren't on par with the likes most cars at Penske, Ganassi, Andretti and McLaren, but those four teams aren't your entire series either. And outside them, the other 15 (with few exceptions) can finish just about anywhere on any given weekend. Now, if you were building a series from scratch, I'd be interested to see a 24-car IndyCar field with 12 two-car teams, or maybe one with 10 or 11 teams combined to have 24 cars on the grid — allowing for a little less chaos on the tightest tracks and shortest pit lanes and a bit more exclusivity to generate some actual interest in those on the outside trying to buy their way in. But putting a square peg in a round hole now, and the unnecessary firestorm that would come from it, is just too tough to navigate now. IndyCar had the opportunity to trim its grid to 25 and tell Prema it needed to buy charters in order to compete 18 months ago and chose not to. Until this charter agreement expires, I don't know there's any changing that. At the same time, I think Brown's assertion that decisions on IndyCar's next car and technical regulations need to be made by chasing cutting-edge technology, more speed and horsepower and lighter-weight machines — rather than what's easiest to stomach for teams in the middle or back of the pack — are spot on. And maybe if you do so, we see a bit of a shakeup to the grid anyways. After going more than 15 years without a wholesale change to the car on track, IndyCar can't afford both technologically and optically to make another relatively minor update to what has become a Frankenstein-like car compared to the one Dan Wheldon tested and helped refine in 2011. And the major implication is this: Don't cut corners for the sake of cost-savings. I hate to say it, because I know this isn't going to be an easy stretch for several teams on the grid (even with the friendly loan plan Miles said in March the series is working on to help teams pay for the cars), but this needs to be a car that makes a statement. Use some parts from this car's construction if you can and it makes sense — in other words, don't just pursue change for change's sake. But the series needs to map out a car that best fits this state of IndyCar, and see where the chips fall. Insider: IndyCar planning to introduce new car in 2027, Roger Penske says While better integrating the aero screen, the hybrid (if it indeed is staying in some form) and recent safety updates to IndyCar's new machine, this car needs to be light, sleek, powerful and loud. It needs to be something this series can rally and market around in a similar vein to how NASCAR's NextGen car and IMSA's GTP machines drew increased intrigue in their early years. It's not going to be the peak of technological engineering, ala Formula 1, but it needs to make some noise both literally and figuratively. And that's going to cost some money. And if that's a dealbreaker to some teams, then it's an unfortunate fact the way in which new chapters in racing series spell different phases for teams up and down the grid. It's not uncommon in other series, and it shouldn't be something Penske Entertainment should shy away from. As Brown said, 'We need to get to the point where everyone's chasing the best, as opposed to working toward the lowest common denominator because you're trying to keep the back of the grid in business.' It's enough to not get uber-exclusive and outright boot teams out of the series like Brown suggested, but it should also at the same time be a privilege and a sign of both passion and financial stability to have a couple cars running in IndyCar. Brown's third major pillar is perhaps too soon to suggest breaking ground on, in part because we need to see how a project in the same vein, the Arlington Grand Prix, works next March. The new event, which Miles said he expects to be as big and culturally impactful as the Miami Grand Prix — if not bigger — brings the muscle, marketing savvy, local knowhow and the ticketholder registries of the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers to help IndyCar put on perhaps its biggest event outside the Indy 500 in 2026. It's been said to have been in the works for some time, and for a series desperately in need of more spring races, it adds yet another high-energy street race to the pre-Indy 500 section that already includes St. Pete and Long Beach and hopefully next year will also include Mexico City. The 'race around a stadium' model is by no means new to American open-wheel racing, but having the might of two of Texas' biggest pro sports franchises behind it is a major plus. Insider: What are 3 things to change about IndyCar? Here are our ideas And if next year's debut is as much of a success as it's been pumped up to be, Penske Entertainment needs to shop this around to other pro sports franchises around the country. Target No. 1? MetLife Stadium — the home of the NFL's New York Giants and Jets — and the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Though not a simple project to land — after all, you've got to convince two NFL franchises to join you in this endeavor to really get it to pop — it would be a major step for a series that is adamant it is and will continue to be wholly a North American series, but doesn't race anywhere close to the continent's biggest media market. And if it's something that the NFL franchises would only be willing to minimally support in Year 1 so as to feel out its potential before going all in, it should be a risk Penske Entertainment — which up until this point has shied away from racing in Mexico City on a track rental because it was devoid a local partner and which has emphasized in recent years its willingness to do big things, but mainly with other partners in the mix — should go all in on. As Brown said, massive undertakings like a blowout race under the shadows of the New York City skyline, might not be a profitable endeavor on its own, but it would offer an opportunity to elevate the series' brand as a whole. 'I think we need to be in bigger cities. I know it's going to be fiscally difficult to say, 'I want to race in New York City,' but I think to invest in a few more key markets where races may not be profitable, but (they) drive greater following of the sport and more sponsorship and bigger TV ratings, you get money back in value creation and growth of the teams and the sport,' Brown said. It would be the biggest swing Penske Entertainment has taken to date, but a sport where IndyCar is at the moment isn't going to take meaningful leaps in the sports — and even the racing — landscapes without taking risks. Outside non-Indy 500 blockbuster events like IndyCar's season opener (St. Pete), Arlington, Long Beach, (potentially) Mexico City and anything like Brown suggested in the Greater New York City area, IndyCar needs to elevate the floor of the rest of the events on its calendar. Not every single race can feel like one of the biggest on the calendar in the way F1 grands prix do, but there needs to be an higher level of expectation events that hope to continue to live on the calendar. And that starts with looking for alternatives for events that seem to merely exist like Portland and Laguna Seca. Though the former gives you a stop in the Pacific Northwest that IndyCar otherwise wouldn't race in, it's a race weekend that gets almost zero hype and publicity locally, and the fan turnout isn't anything to write home about. Until a couple years ago, Laguna Seca made sense as a finale in that it offered a somewhat glamorous place for the series and teams to entertain sponsors, even if the race weekend itself was sparsely attended. Now that it's left floating around the summer slate, Penske Entertainment shouldn't be afraid to move off an event even if it's willing to offer a slightly higher sanctioning fee than others. As Graham Rahal and so many others in the paddock have said before, in an age where it's trying to position itself as a growing giant in the motorsports realm, IndyCar should not be racing in places that make it appear unimportant. So as not to completely upend the series' balance of road, street and oval events, I think the series should first look toward natural terrain road course opportunities to swap into. Sonoma fell off the calendar in place of Laguna Seca seven years ago. If Penske Entertainment was better positioned to partner with the track and market the hell out of a return to the venue that's just north of San Francisco, could it have more success than previously? I've been told by multiple parties in the paddock that it's pertinent that IndyCar maintain a presence in the greater central California coast area, which makes giving Sonoma another chance something to consider. Insider: Will Fox, IndyCar find 'rapid growth' it sought after Indy 500? Detroit Grand Prix was a start Could you partner with IMSA on its Six Hour event at Watkins Glen and run Saturday, so as not to completely upend IMSA's six-hour race on Sunday, or find another slot on the calendar that would make sense for the upstate New York track to hold another major race weekend? Could you make a return to Homestead in the spring to give the oval track and the community another race weekend to rally around as it's primed to occasionally host NASCAR season finales and potential other fall playoff rounds in the future? Could you reconsider a return to Richmond, even though Miles vehemently poo-pooed the idea last fall? All these involve returns to tracks that fell off IndyCar's calendar for a reason, but Penske Entertainment clearly isn't afraid to put its marketing and promotional might behind events it needs to find success. In the slim amount of NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports-owned tracks that IndyCar visits, it's clear those two behemoths in the track owning landscape across the U.S. aren't going to just hand IndyCar a race weekend if there's not something for them in it, and in most cases, IndyCar hasn't been able to draw big enough crowds at some venues to make owners of those facilities feel there's enough financial gain for them to promote the race themselves. So find an already big event and see if you can make it bigger, like The Glen, or rent an oval like you do with Iowa Speedway, and pull out all the stops to give a race there a better chance to succeed than it had before. Sometimes in this crowded sports and entertainment market, you need to make your own luck, even if it costs a few bucks, and believe in yourself if no one else will. And if IndyCar is to make a serious jump in the next five years, it can't just sit around and wait for others to believe in the dream if Penske Entertainment isn't out on the frontlines trying to will it to happen.
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