St. Petersburg, Fla — The more things change, the more they stay the same.
While several organizations had changes in the offseason as far as their driver lineup, the driver who has dominated the series over the last year continued to blister the competition.
Alex Palou, who won eight races in 2025 on the way to his third consecutive INDYCAR title (and fourth overall), won the 2026 season-opening St. Petersburg Grand Prix. And he didn’t just win, he won by a record 12.4948 seconds.
Here are my takeaways:
1. Palou Pounds Them
When a driver has a big lead, it sometimes feels prudent not to push the car to the limit. Even Palou made a mistake last year at Mid-Ohio while leading.
So did Palou win by more than 12 seconds to send a message to the remainder of the field that he’s out to pound them again? The Chip Ganassi Racing driver indicated there was more to it than that.
“Especially on street courses, it’s not good to relax for the tires [with] the bumps, how they feel,” Palou said in his post-race news conference. “You might just start feeling even worse if you go at lower speeds.
“I try and keep my pace, try and keep a pace that’s good for the car and my driving. Every time that I try to stay calm or to drop the pace, it’s been bad. I was just trying to push.”
2. Power Wrecks, Is Disappointed
Will Power had battled brake issues in his debut weekend with Andretti after a 17-year career at Penske. But he said his hitting the wall on Lap 21 was his fault.
Power’s team got the car back out but he finished 45 laps down in 22nd, saying that was not what they needed as they looked to run all the laps.
“The issues we had early in the weekend were true issues. That one was a slight issue, but I could have prevented that,” Power told me. “That was on me. We were doing really well on fuel, the car felt great.
“The potential is really good. I’m feeling good about potential with the car. I think I learned a lot about this car this weekend. And obviously fixed some teething issues.”
3: Fun Battles Behind Palou
Scott McLaughlin (second), Christian Lundgaard (third) and Kyle Kirkwood (fourth) had a spirited battle during the race.
McLaughlin might have had flashbacks to 2023 when he and Romain Grosjean wrecked while battling for the lead at St. Pete.
The Team Penske driver said the battles with the other cars up front, as well as at one point Marcus Ericsson, were clean.
“They’re the guys that I have raced with in the past and very fair, very clean and hard,” McLaughlin said in his postrace news conference. “What you sort of expect.”
Kirkwood, whose tires were fading fast, told me: “I figured [McLaughlin] would be a little bit more hesitant. Hye was not more hesitant. Kudos to him. We barely touched, caused no damage between us. It was just good, hard racing between us, and once I destroyed my tires, I think we raced very admirably. … They play clean, they play smart. You can trust them on a pass like that, on the street course around the outside.”
4: Pato Pleased
Pato O’Ward said prior to this week that he wanted to keep his bad days from being too bad. And after a bad start, he rallied to finish fifth. Last year, he qualified 23rd and finished 11th at St. Pete.
With McLaren teammate Lundgaard in third, it was a solid day for the McLaren team.
“This was a good recovery,” O’Ward told me. “I don’t think the car was really there to fight super, super hard. So I think a lot of that was actually strategy and in the pits.
“A P5 day in INDYCAR is a good day. But when another guy keeps winning races, it’s obviously making it very tough for everyone else. But much better start than last year. So pretty pumped about that.”
4 ½: What’s Next
INDYCAR heads to Phoenix for a race Saturday, part of a doubleheader with the NASCAR O’Reilly Series and a day before the NASCAR Cup Series takes to the track.
It is the first INDYCAR race at Phoenix since 2018.
It will be Palou’s 100th career start.
“Do I get a present or something?” Palou said when that was mentioned during the post-race news conference.
Guess a win by 12 seconds is not enough.
