Alex Palou wins St. Pete but INDYCAR champ favorite status must wait

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Don’t engrave Alex Palou’s name on the 2025 INDYCAR championship trophy just yet. 

Yes, he led 26 laps on his way to the victory Sunday afternoon in the season-opening INDYCAR Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Yes, he crossed the finish line 2.8 seconds ahead of teammate Scott Dixon and 6.2 seconds ahead of Josef Newgarden.

And, yes, he already has three championship trophies, including the 2023 and 2024 rings.

“He makes it look easy, doesn’t he?” team owner Chip Ganassi said. “Makes it look easy. Doesn’t sweat.”

So in a world where overreacting to sports results is a favorite pastime, don’t be ready to anoint the Spaniard as the 2025 champion.

His competition certainly (and expectedly) isn’t.

“It’s Round 1,” said third-place finisher Josef Newgarden. “Let’s see how it goes.”

Newgarden felt he could have won but they had fueling issues.

“We just had fuel miscues two times,” said Newgarden, who was running out of fuel on the final lap.

Palou teammate Dixon knew what he needed to beat Palou on Sunday after Dixon could not hear his crew tell him when it wanted him to pit — and he pitted a lap later than the crew wanted.

“Get a radio that works,” the six-time series champion Dixon said on how to beat Palou. “That would be good.”

Palou knows it’s only Race 1 and everything went well for him Sunday. But that isn’t a coincidence. His previous road/street course results are second, fourth, second, first and fourth.

“We’ve always struggled here for some reason, and we got it now to feel like what I need and what we need as drivers to push and to extract 100 percent,” Palou said.

“That being said, I don’t think that translates to other racetracks because in the past we’ve been struggling here but not at other places. I don’t think that what we learned here we can take to [the next street course at] Long Beach.”

And even though he felt better than in the past, Newgarden noted that he finished third even with the errors.

“To have miscues like that and to still finish third, I think is a great day in a lot of ways,” Newgarden said. “Really pleased to come out of here with points. Obviously there’s a lot more than could have been.”

While he said he was really pleased, Newgarden’s mannerisms showed he was bitterly disappointed. And Dixon didn’t mince words.

“I’m pretty pissed off,” Dixon said. “We had a good race going and we didn’t get it done. It doesn’t feel good.”

That’s typical racing. There is a winner and the rest of the field feel like losers, especially the ones who believe their lack of winning could have been prevented.

And that’s where the Palou team thrives. Sure everyone makes mistakes, but Ganassi noted that Palou’s timing stand where race decisions and strategy are made “has all-stars on it. In terms of strategy, calling the race, communication — there’s nobody better than the 10 car guys.”

Ganassi said his Dixon and Kyffin Simpson teams have work to do to catch up to Palou.

“I don’t know that one race winner makes you [the favorite],” Ganassi said. “We’re certainly the season favorite until next week or until the next race. What I’m most happy about is each offseason, every team does work on their cars.

“You don’t sit flatfooted all winter. You’re working on your cars trying to make them better. I think our cars are better than they were a year ago — at least here in St. Pete.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and IndyCar for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.