Palou won the 2026 St. Petersburg Grand Prix with a 12-second lead.

Alex Palou opened the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season with a 12.4-second victory over Scott McLaughlin at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, the largest margin in the 23 runnings of this race. It is his 20th victory in 99 races, and he built it with a pace that no one else could match and a race reading that allowed him to make the right decisions at every pit stop.

Palou started fourth and controlled two-thirds of the race

Palou started fourth, let McLaughlin and Marcus Ericsson wear each other out at the front during the first stint, and took advantage of the pit cycle to take the lead. When Penske called in McLaughlin on lap 35 and Andretti did the same with Ericsson a lap later, Palou stayed out for two extra laps on his alternate tires. That overcut, the same tool he and his strategist Barry Wanser use race after race, gave him clean air and enough fast laps to exit the pits ahead of both when positions reset on lap 42. By lap 60, he already had a lead of over seven seconds, and when he made his final stop on lap 67, the cushion was 14 seconds.

Photo By Penske Entertainment

On that stop, Palou chose to close the final 33 laps on primary tires, the harder compound with less grip, and yet no one could cut his lead. McLaughlin and Kyle Kirkwood opted for the faster alternate tires, and Kirkwood was never within 5.5 seconds. "The Firestones were eternal; they just kept performing," Palou said. "I had an incredible car." He led 59 of the 100 laps, only surrendering the lead during pit cycles, and thus added his fourth victory in St. Petersburg, his third consecutive.

McLaughlin finished second, Kirkwood lost the podium due to fuel

McLaughlin started from pole, his third in the last five visits to this circuit, and led the first 35 laps, but his Penske Chevrolet didn't have the speed to fight on equal terms with the Ganassi Honda in race pace, and second place was the maximum he could extract from the day. "Our Chevy was fast, but you depend a lot on which tire you start on," McLaughlin said. "I think we maximized what we had." Kirkwood started 15th and climbed to second place thanks to an aggressive undercut in the final pit cycle, including an outside pass on McLaughlin in Turn 4, but the need to save fuel in the final laps cost him pace and opened the door for McLaughlin and Christian Lundgaard, who passed him in Turn 10 with six laps to go, dropping him to fourth. Lundgaard started 12th in the Arrow McLaren Chevrolet and finished third, and his teammate Pato O'Ward, the 2025 runner-up, rounded out the top five.

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Newgarden gained 16 positions, Dixon and Power retired

Josef Newgarden started 23rd after a difficult weekend that included a crash into the barriers on Friday and gained 16 positions to finish seventh, the second-best Penske of the afternoon. Scott Dixon, six-time champion, lost his right rear tire on lap 40 because it wasn't properly secured during his pit stop, and the car was stranded before Turn 4 in a rare mistake for a team like Ganassi. Will Power, who turned 45 this Sunday, retired on lap 55 with damage to the right rear suspension from contact in Turn 10, the same spot where he had hit in the second practice session.

Mick Schumacher, in his first IndyCar race with Rahal Letterman Lanigan, didn't complete a single lap because he rode up over Santino Ferrucci's car in Turn 4 when Sting Ray Robb hit Ferrucci from behind, taking both Schumacher and Ferrucci out, with Robb continuing under a penalty for avoidable contact. Dale Coyne Racing had one of its best weekends in years, with both cars in the Fast Six for the first time since 2022 and both drivers in the top 10. Romain Grosjean, who returned to IndyCar and to the team after a year away, qualified sixth and finished eighth, and his teammate Dennis Hauger, the 2025 Indy NXT champion and series rookie, qualified third on Saturday, the first driver to reach the Fast Six in their first qualifying session since Lundgaard in 2021, though he lost positions in the race and finished 10th.

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IndyCar's next event is the Good Ranchers 250 on Saturday, March 7th at Phoenix Raceway, the one-mile oval that is part of the "Desert Double" weekend alongside a NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday.

Pos	Nº	Piloto	Equipo	Puntos	Vueltas	Estado
1	#10	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	54	100	En pista
2	#3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	41	100	En pista
3	#7	Christian Lundgaard	Arrow McLaren	36	100	En pista
4	#27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Global	32	100	En pista
5	#5	Pato O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	30	100	En pista
6	#28	Marcus Ericsson	Andretti Global	29	100	En pista
7	#2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	27	100	En pista
8	#18	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing	24	100	En pista
9	#76	Rinus VeeKay	Juncos Hollinger Racing	22	100	En pista
10	#19	Dennis Hauger (D)	Dale Coyne Racing	20	100	En pista
11	#66	Marcus Armstrong	Meyer Shank Racing	19	100	En pista
12	#60	Felix Rosenqvist	Meyer Shank Racing	18	100	En pista
13	#12	David Malukas	Team Penske	17	100	En pista
14	#45	Louis Foster	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	17	100	En pista
15	#8	Kyffin Simpson	Chip Ganassi Racing	15	100	En pista
16	#20	Alexander Rossi	Ed Carpenter Racing	14	100	En pista
17	#4	Caio Collet (D)	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	13	100	En pista
18	#15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	12	100	En pista
19	#21	Christian Rasmussen	Ed Carpenter Racing	11	100	En pista
20	#6	Nolan Siegel	Arrow McLaren	10	99	En pista
21	#77	Sting Ray Robb	Juncos Hollinger Racing	9	93	En pista
22	#26	Will Power	Andretti Global	8	55	Retirado
23	#9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	8	39	Fuera de pista
24	#14	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	6	0	Contacto
25	#47	Mick Schumacher (D)	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	5	0	Contacto