IndyCar
Marcus Ericsson wins the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG, FL (Pittsburgh Racing Now) – Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Ericsson is letting the rest of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES know he is going to be a driver to deal with in 2023 after winning the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by RP Funding.
Ericsson passed Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward with two-laps-to-go to take the lead and put the throttle down to a 2.4-second victory at the 14-turn, 1.8-mile temporary street circuit.
“I think we had a really good weekend from the get-go,” said Ericsson. “I was very excited to come here because yes, it’s been an amazing off-season. I got to experience so many cool things and celebrations with the Borg-Warner trophy. And winning the 500 is a win that keeps on giving.
People were worried, kept telling me you need to focus and you need to not get carried away. For me, all those celebrations, all those things I got to experience just gave me more energy, gave me even more hunger to win more and win again in the speedway and also to win the championship.”
O’Ward was leading coming onto the front straightway when the No. 5 Chevrolet’s engine stumbled giving Ericsson the opportunity to take advantage.
“It shut off with a plenum fire. You have to let off, get back to it, and then it kind of like — perfect timing,” said O’Ward sarcastically. “Sadly, just very annoying to give it away like that. Nothing else I could have done.
“I felt bad for Pato, but we were there to pick up on it,” said Ericsson. “If I wasn’t putting pressure on him and hunt him down, he would have been fine and we would have been second. But we were there right on his gearbox, and we got past.”
Six time INDYCAR Champion Scott Dixon brought the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda home with a podium finish in an eventful day which saw the ‘Iceman’ survive first lap contact with Felix Rosenqvist, a race control review that moved him back four spots when the 9-team was looking like the leaders as they came off pit road and the caution came out.
“It was a pretty smooth day,” said Dixon. “I think how the cautions fell kind of played to us until that untimely one. I think we would have clearly got the lead there, and it would have been kind of smooth sailing, I think. Strategy-wise we didn’t have to go super long on the reds, and then we could have pitted early for the blacks, and kind of got out of being in a bad situation for going long and getting caught on a yellow later. Still take great points. A third-place finish is fantastic here, considering how the day was. Huge credit to the team.”
Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi came home fourth in his first race with his new team and Calllum Ilott gave Juncos Hollinger Racing a fifth place finish.
The green flag was barely back in the starters stand when Dixon and Rosenqvist came together in Turn 3 as Rosenqvist tried to avoid a spot where the left wall encroaches the track. The contact slowed Rosenqvist and traffic stacked-up behind him triggering a 5-car pileup.
Andretti Autosport’s Devlin DeFrancesco got the worst of the incident, getting T-boned by Benjamin Pedersen. Meyer Shank Racing teammates Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud as well as AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci saw their day come to an end as a result of crash damage. The crash cleanup forced a 19-plus minute red flag. No one was seriously injured.
The #FirestoneGP is red flagged after this lap 1 incident.#INDYCAR // @GPSTPETE pic.twitter.com/7s50XtKiTi
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) March 5, 2023
Pole-sitter Romain Grosjean led the field back to green and cruised out front until hit made his first pit stop on Lap 32. During that green flag pit cycle, Dixon jumped into the lead by staying out on the harder primary Firestone tires. Dixon hit pit road on Lap 35 when the caution came out for Conor Daly.
Dixon looked to be the leader but INDYCAR race stewards reviewed the timing and scoring data and moved Scott McLaughlin, Grosjean, O’Ward and Ericsson ahead of Dixon. NBC Sports video confirmed that Dixon did not cross the timing and scoring line on pit road ahead of the other four.
So often in racing caution flags cause more cautions and that was the case Sunday in St. Pete as the Lap 41 restart saw Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay got into the marbles and slid into the tire barrier. The No. 21 Bitnile Chevrolet rebounded off the tires right into the path of a hard charging Jack Harvey and Kyle Kirkwood, who had nowhere to go. The contact sent the No. 27 AutoNation Honda airborne.
The carnage continues on Lap 50 when Team Penske’s Will Power sent Andretti’s Colton Herta into the tires. Power was penalized for avoidable contact.
Full course caution again in St. Pete.
This time, @ColtonHerta is in the tire barrier.#INDYCAR // #FirestoneGP pic.twitter.com/1z6qDiv25G
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) March 5, 2023
The next 20-laps saw hard racing between McLaughlin and Grosjean as those behind started to pit early hoping for a caution to flip the field. The caution came out right after the two leaders made pit stops and Grosjean figured it was time to take advantage of McLaughlin’s cold tires. McLaughlin thought otherwise and the No. 28 DHL Honda and No. 3 Dex Imaging Chevrolet in the tire barrier.
.@smclaughlin93 and @RGrosjean make contact… Again.#INDYCAR // #FirestoneGP pic.twitter.com/9FKkCiff5C
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) March 5, 2023
In all there were 6-caution flags for 26-laps and a red flag for 19-minutes.
The next NTT INDYCAR SERIES race is April 2nd at Texas Motor Speedway.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (March 17, 2026) — Indiana University head football coach Curt Cignetti will lead the field of 33 drivers to the green flag as the pace car driver for the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500.
Cignetti, who guided the Hoosiers to an undefeated season and national championship in 2025–26, is a Pittsburgh native and the son of the late Hall of Fame coach Frank Cignetti. Frank Cignetti served as head coach at West Virginia University from 1976 to 1979 and at Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 1986 to 2005.
Cignetti will drive the all-new Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X, a 1,250-horsepower hybrid hypercar that began production in December 2025 at the Bowling Green, Kentucky, assembly plant. Additional pace car details, including its one-of-a-kind Indianapolis 500 livery, will be unveiled at a later date.
“Coach Cignetti will lead our field in a special pace lap formation as he brings the stars of the NTT IndyCar Series to the green flag at this year’s Indy 500,” said J. Douglas Boles, president of IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “His Hoosiers have been nothing short of remarkable, and their national championship run inspired our entire state. He’s the perfect choice to drive the Chevrolet pace car, and I know his introduction on Race Day will bring out a tremendous roar from our crowd.”
Cignetti is the first Division I head coach to start 8–0 or better in consecutive seasons at different institutions and just the third to open back-to-back seasons at 10–0. He and the Hoosiers have compiled a nation-leading 27 victories over the past two seasons, including two College Football Playoff appearances and the program’s national championship.
Cignetti joins an impressive list of Indianapolis 500 pace car drivers that includes Michael Strahan, Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Harbaugh, Robin Roberts, Gen. Colin Powell, Morgan Freeman, Henry Ford II, and Louis Chevrolet.
The 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge will take place Sunday, May 24, 2026, with FOX Sports coverage beginning at 10 a.m. ET.
Tickets for all Month of May activities at Indianapolis Motor Speedway are available at IMS.com/tickets or through the IMS Ticket Office at 317-492-6700.
Cignetti graduated from Morgantown High School and played quarterback at West Virginia University. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant under Foge Fazio at the University of Pittsburgh from 1983 to 1984, later returning to Pitt to coach quarterbacks and tight ends from 1993 to 1999. He followed in his father’s footsteps as head coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2016.
Football runs deep in the family, as Cignetti’s brother, Frank Jr., has joined Mike McCarthy’s staff with the Pittsburgh Steelers after previous stints as offensive coordinator at IUP and Pitt.
ARLINGTON, TX (March 15, 2026) – Kyle Kirkwood passed Alex Palou with 15-laps to go and survived a late-race restart to win the NTT IndyCar Series inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington.
Palou was leading following the final pit stop for both drivers but Kirkwood had a fast JM Bullion Honda and didn’t waste any time running down Palou and dive-bombing inside of the No. 10 DHL Honda in Turn 13 to make the daring pass stick for the lead.
“He (Palou) was so good in the four, five, six, seven, eight, nine section, the tight, twisty bit,” explained Kirkwood. “It was hard to get to his gearbox to make a pass on the straight. Yeah, just had to do a bit of a late lunge and surprise him a little bit because if he started defending there was probably no chance of us getting by him ’cause that was probably the only place we were going to be able to pass him.”
Palou, who scored his 46th podium in 101-starts, said he did all he could do.
“I tried hard, man,” said Palou, the reigning Series Champion. “Kirkwood was really fast. I could see already on second and third stint that I was pushing as much as I could, using OT to try to get gaps. He was closing 3, 4/10ths on me. Honestly didn’t really have much for him. I think I’m really happy getting on the podium and trying to steal a little bit of Andretti’s party this weekend.”
Will Power placed third in the No. 26 TWG AI Honda for his first podium finish with Andretti Global. Pole-sitter Marcus Ericsson finished fourth as Andretti grabbed three of the Top 4 finishing positions.
“Really, all the guys 100% to overcome some adversity,” said Dan Towriss, CEO of TWG Motorsports. “Wasn’t our best day in the pit lane. I think it shows the resiliency of this team, the speed of the cars, the talent of the drivers. Today Kyle came out on top. I couldn’t be more proud of Kyle and the effort he put out there today.”
Pato O’Ward rounded out the top five finishers in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
“This Andretti Honda camp is fricking strong on street courses,” said O’Ward. “We’ve got a lot of work to do if we want to start winning races on outright pace against them.”
The win was the first of 2026 for Kirkwood, the sixth of his career and fifth on a street course. Kirkwood leaves the Lone Star State with the IndyCar Series points lead, 26-points over Palou.
Caio Collet was the top-finishing rookie, 12th in the No. 4 Combitrans Amazonia Chevrolet fielded by AJ Foyt Racing.
Next up is the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix powered by AmFirst on March 27-29 at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.
ARLINGTON, TX (March 15, 2026) – Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson is on the pole position for the NTT IndyCar Series inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington.
Ericsson’s fast lap of 1 minute, 34.3562 seconds in the No. 28 InPwr Honda was nearly a half-second quicker than reigning series Champion Alex Palou. The pole position is the first career pole in 117-IndyCar starts for Ericsson, a native of Sweden.
“It just feels amazing,” said Ericsson, who started second in the season opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. “I think the team has done a really good job, and the 28 crew has been — I think we’ve showed that already in St. Pete, obviously second there, just two hundredths of a second off pole. So it was frustrating that night. But really, really good to finish qualifying in P1 and then start from pole tomorrow.”
Palou was the last driver to go out as IndyCar debuted a new one-lap, single-car format for the Firestone Fast Six. Palou laid down a fast lap of 1:34.8180 in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
“I think there was like more than 20 minutes between my last lap in Fast 12 until my out lap in Fast Six,” explained Palou. “Only having an out lap just doesn’t allow you to warm up the brakes or the tires or anything. I was slower than what I did on old tires on the previous sessions. I think tire temp made a difference. Having said that, I don’t know if I would have matched his lap time. He was pretty fast. I’m happy with a P2, honestly.”
Palou’s Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Kyffin Simpson and Scott Dixon did not fare as well. Simpson will start 14th in the No. 8 Sunoco Honda and Dixon will start 20th in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda after an incident in practice.
Pato O’Ward will start third in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet after a lap of 1:34.8453. Ericsson’s teammate Will Power will start after a lap of 1:35.0856 in the No. 26 TWG AI Honda.
Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb Agajanian teammates locked out the third row. Felix Rosenqvist will start fifth after his lap of 1:35.1607 in the No. 60 SiriusXM/Texas A&M Honda, with Marcus Armstrong sixth at 1:35.6012 in the No. 66 ROOT Insurance Honda, as Honda took six of the top 7 qualifying spots.
The 70-lap race around around AT&T Stadium, the Dallas Cowboys’ home field, and Globe Life Field, the Texas Rangers’ home.which will feature a new start time due to forecasted high winds later Sunday afternoon in North Texas. Live coverage will start at 11:30 a.m. ET Sunday on FOX, FOX Deportes, FOX One, the FOX Sports app and INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls, with the green flag set for noon ET.
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