IndyCar
Josef Newgarden and Will Power lead first practice at Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG, FL (Pittsburgh Racing Now) – Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden and Will Power led a Team Penske 1-2 in the first practice session for Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
Newgarden turned a fast lap of 1:00:8029 (106.574 MPH) to narrowly edge Power’s fast lap of 1:00:8102 (106.561).
Andretti Autosport teammates Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi were next on the charts. Herta’s fast lap was 1:00:8348 (106.518) and Rossi was a tick behind at 1:00:8653 (106.465).
“I think the track was really high grip, honestly, more so than what I was expecting,” Newgarden said. “That’s probably what brought the times tighter. Normally when it grips up, we get really close as far as the entire pack.
Penske’s Simon Pagenaud rounded out the top 5 with a quick lap of 1:00:8992. All four Penske cars were in the top 10 as rookie Scott McLaughlin came in eighth fastest at 1:01:0158.
A bit of a mixed bag for Chip Ganassi Racing. Scott Dixon led the team with a fast lap of 1:00:9152, which was good for sixth fastest in the No. 9 PNC Bank Grow Up Great Honda.
“The car felt pretty good,” said Dixon, the reigning and six-time series Champion. “We made some good changes. We had a test plan with all four cars and we made some good adjustments. P6 we’ll take that, keep pushing tomorrow. Hopefully a little bit better.”
Marcus Ericsson just missed the top 10 with a quick lap of 1:01:1170 in the No. 8 Huski Chocolate Honda, just behind Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Graham Rahal in tenth (1:01:0912).
“Good start for us, ended up P10,” said Rahal. “We had good pace the whole time. I thought a couple of laps we had could have put us in the top two or top three. One lap it went red (flag). One lap I caught Josef and a little bit of traffic but I feel really good the United Rentals car is strong this weekend.”
“I feel comfortable with the car,” said Ericsson. “We need to do some fine tuning tomorrow but we have really good pace to work from, feeling strong.”
CGR’s Alex Palou placed 20th in the No. 10 NTT DATA Honda at 1:01:7393 (104.957) as less than one-second separated Newgarden from Palou.
“The car is good,” said Palou, who picked up his first career win last week at Barber Motorsports Park. “We just got some traffic and really didn’t make the lap (time). Tomorrow we have another practice and qualifying and I think we’ll really be ready to be up there.”
Palou’s teammate Jimmie Johnson finished 24th 1:03:1317 in the No. 48 Carvana Honda. It was Johnson’s first practice ever on a street circuit.
“There’s a lot going on,” said Johnson of his first practice ever on a temporary street circuit. “Very tricky trying to get the tires up to where I have the comfort to start charging and the braking marks and power down marks right. But I kept all four corners on the car, didn’t end up in the runoff. Certainly step one of this process of learning how to go INDYCAR racing on a street circuit. What a rush, what an experience!”
Teams have another practice session on Saturday morning from 9:45 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. to get their cars dialed in.
Qualifying for the NTT P1 Award is scheduled to start at 1:45 p.m., with live coverage on Peacock Premium and same-day coverage at 10 p.m. on NBCSN.
Live coverage of the 100-lap race starts at noon Sunday on NBC and the INDYCAR Radio Network.
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Chip Ganassi Racing’s 2026 Trading Cards are coming out soon, and race fans can support a great cause by picking up a pack.
CGR’s 2025 trading card program raised over $20,000 for charities across the country, and proceeds from the 2026 program will benefit education nonprofit DonorsChoose, a PNC Grow Up Great® partner supporting public school and Head Start classrooms.
PNC Grow Up Great is a $500 million, bilingual early childhood education initiative that has been helping to prepare children from birth through age 5 for success in school and in life since 2004.
PNC and DonorsChoose—an education nonprofit that allows individuals to donate directly to classroom projects—have collaborated since 2017 to help teachers obtain quality resources and experiences for students in public pre-K, public charter, and Head Start classrooms. The $20 million alliance has included flash funds, match offers, DonorsChoose gift codes, and jumpstart donations to support early childhood learning.
Cards are available for pre-order now at chipganassiracing.com/cgrcards. Fans may receive autographed cards from Scott Dixon, six-time NTT IndyCar Series Champion and driver of the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda; defending IndyCar Champion and defending Indianapolis 500 winner Alex Palou, driver of the No. 10 DHL Honda; and rising star Kyffin Simpson, driver of the No. 8 Sunoco Honda.
Since 2018, Dixon has visited high-quality education centers across the country, engaging in reading and other early learning activities with thousands of preschoolers—helping to expand PNC Grow Up Great and inspire the next generation of IndyCar fans.
BIRMINGHAM, AL (March 29, 2026) — Alex Palou returned to victory lane Sunday, winning the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park.
Driving the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Palou started from pole, led 79 laps, and beat Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard by 13.2775 seconds.
The win was Palou’s second of the 2026 season and his third career victory at the picturesque 2.33-mile, 17-turn road course. It also marked a second consecutive win at Barber for Chip Ganassi Racing. The track was built by the late George Barber, who passed away in February at the age of 85.
“What an amazing car,” said Palou. “Another win here. Love this place, love the fans. What a great day. Today in the race, it was pretty good in the beginning, really good at the end, but we suffered a little bit on the used blacks (Firestone Firehawk primary tires) that we had to use.”
Lundgaard appeared poised to challenge Palou in the closing stages as pit cycles and traffic shuffled the field. Palou made his final stop first but rejoined in traffic among cars fighting to stay on the lead lap.
“Those moments you can lose the race in like nothing,” said Palou. “You can lose five, six seconds with two laps because you’re fighting with cold tires and lap cars.”
“It was coming down to I think like we were three seconds ahead of him when we pitted,” said Julian Robertson, lead engineer on the No. 10 Honda. “We had some pretty decent, once we got through the traffic, started running some decent laps. It was going to be really close.”
Lundgaard pushed to close the gap but saw his chances slip away during a slow final pit stop—more than 17 seconds—due to a right-rear issue.
“I think we had something for him (Palou),” said Lundgaard. “I don’t really know what happened (on pit road). It’s unfortunate because I was told that we would have passed him if we would have had a clean stop. At that point I really just wanted to get back past Graham (Rahal) to get back what we lost because Alex was gone.”
“He (Lundgaard) had two sets (alternate Firestone’s) because he didn’t advance to Fast Six,” explained Palou. “He had two sets of brand-new stickers. When we were on used primaries, which were not very good, he was on brand-new alternates. That’s why he was getting so close.”
Graham Rahal finished third—his best result of 2026—but could not hold off Lundgaard late. Team Penske’s David Malukas came home fourth, just 0.07 seconds behind Rahal after starting on the front row.
“It’s a good reward for the guys and gals,” said Rahal, who earned his first podium finish since August 2023 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. “Everybody has worked so hard to get back here and heard all the noise and b.s. that we get to hear all the time. All weekend the car was in very good shape and very, very competitive and very comfortable.”
Kyle Kirkwood finished fifth in the No. 27 JM Bullion Honda for Andretti Global and now holds a two-point lead over Palou in the championship standings heading into the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Strategy played a major role throughout the race. Palou started on the black sidewall Firestone Firehawk primary tires—harder and more durable but slower—while Malukas opted for the faster, quicker-wearing red sidewall alternates.
A difficult warmup session led Ganassi to adjust its approach and commit to the primary tire strategy.
“This morning with the warm-up, like, tanked,” said Robertson. “We kind of switched strategy somewhat, which meant in the middle of the race we had to put a set of used blacks on. Got pretty sketchy”.
The strategy ultimately paid off, as Palou secured the 21st win of his career and moved firmly back into the championship fight as he pursues a fourth consecutive title and a second Indianapolis 500 victory in May.
The IndyCar Series is off the next two weekends before returning for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday, April 19.
BIRMINGHAM, AL (March 28, 2026) The NTT IndyCar Series is back on-track this weekend at the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park. This will be the Series first visit to a natural terrain road course in 2026.
Alex Palou starts on the pole position, is the defending race winner and also scored a win in 2021 with his Chip Ganassi Racing team. Palou is coming off a second place finish at the inaugural Grand Prix of Arlington two weeks ago and a victory at the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Palou dominated the 2025 event, winning by 16-seconds. Palou also won five of the seven road course races in 2025.
Who can challenge Palou?
Look no further than Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Global. Kirkwood is coming off a victory at Arlington. Kirkwood and the No. 27 team has shown speed on the street courses the season with his win and a 4-place finish at St. Petersburg. Kirkwood also finished second on the short oval at Phoenix.
Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske scored back-to-back wins at the picturesque 2.38-mile, 17-turn track in 2023 and 2024. McLaughlin showed speed on the street course at St. Petersburg by winning the pole and finishing third, so expect the ‘thirsty three’s’ to be in the mix.
McLaughlin led Friday’s practice with a fast lap of 1 minute, 7.7245 seconds in the No. 3 Odyssey Battery Team Penske Chevrolet but didn’t fare so well during Saturday’s practice, losing control entering Turn 1 and crashing though the fence, which red-flagged the rest of the session. Watch the video here. McLaughlin was not hurt in the incident and will have to go to a backup car.
Penske’s Josef Newgarden leads all active drivers with 3-wins at the circuit, two with Penske (2017-2018) and one with CFH Racing 2015. Will Power, Palou, McLaughlin and Ryan Hunter-Reay, who is running the Indy 500 this year with Arrow McLaren, each have two wins apiece.
Team Penske is by far the most dominant team at Barber, scoring 8-wins in 15-races since IndyCar debuted at the track in 2010. Andretti and Ganassi have 2-wins apiece.
Barber is one of only four tracks on the IndyCar Schedule that 6-time Series Champion Scott Dixon has not won at, the others being St. Pete, Arlington and Portland. Dixon has 8-podium finishes at Barber including 6-second place finishes. If Dixon wants to reach the top step on the podium, Dixon, his engineer Brad Goldberg, and the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda crew need to start qualifying in the Firestone Fast Six, not mid-pack as they have so far in ’26. Dixon starts 13th today.
Morning practice gets underway at 10 AM ET followed by the race at 1 PM ET on Fox and the IndyCar Radio Network.
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