Written by Archie O’Reilly, Edited by Morgan Holiday
After 166 days of off-season, IndyCar was back on track today for a race weekend session with opening practice on the streets of St. Petersburg on Friday as the FOX Sports era of coverage commences.
Here are some key stories from the first Friday of the 2025 season…
Kirkwood leads opening practice
Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood topped the time sheets in the first on-track session of the 2025 IndyCar season, leading Chip Ganassi Racing’s back-to-back defending champion Álex Palou by 0.1595 seconds.
Practice started with a 45-minute all-car session, which was completed uninterrupted as Palou went quickest from Josef Newgarden, whose fellow Team Penske drivers Will Power and Scott McLaughlin rounded out the top four. Kirkwood was fifth in this session.
Standout performances in the all-skate segment came from Ed Carpenter Racing duo Christian Rasmussen and Alexander Rossi, who were sixth and ninth. Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel, now in what will be his first full IndyCar season, was 10th, one position ahead of new teammate Christian Lundgaard and less than half-a-tenth behind Pato O’Ward.
The more meaningful results followed in the two 10-minute group sessions after the all-car running, which saw teams turn to qualifying simulations on the softer, faster alternate tyres. Rookie drivers were eligible to run in each group session, with the field otherwise split by pit allocation.
Kirkwood’s P1 time from the opening group stood as the quickest overall, as did Palou’s P2 and McLaughlin’s P3 laps, despite the latter crashing late in the session. Last year’s eventual St. Pete winner O’Ward, who was fourth in the opening group, completed the top five on the overall time sheets.
Quickest in the second group session was Kirkwood’s Andretti teammate Colton Herta, who finished the session fourth in the overall results. Herta was the only driver in the top seven overall to have run in the second group, with teammate Marcus Ericsson sixth and Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) newbie Marcus Armstrong seventh.
The top 10 overall was completed by Scott Dixon, last year’s disqualified winner Newgarden and the driver who inherited second place in 2024, Power.
Rasmussen followed in 11th, with fellow Indy NXT champion, Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Louis Foster, comfortably the quickest rookie in 12th, having finished third in the second group session. Foster’s fellow rookies, PREMA’s Robert Shwartzman and Dale Coyne Racing’s Jacob Abel, were 24th and 27th.
In better news for debuting team PREMA, Callum Ilott was competitive in 18th. Other notable results included Conor Daly - now sporting the No.76, not No.78, for Juncos Hollinger Racing in light of a new sponsorship deal - backing up a P2 finish in one of the recent test sessions at Sebring with fourth in the second of the split groups.
Trouble at Turn 3 throughout
The most eventful moments of the opening track action of the season came at the high-speed Turn 3, which saw multiple drivers caught out - possibly a result of the added weight to the cars as a result of the hybrid system.
In the all-car session, MSR’s Felix Rosenqvist, who started on the front row in St. Pete last year, was the first to suffer after an aggressive spin on the exit of the fast corner. Miraculously, he managed to save his No.60 Honda and keep it out of the wall.
At a corner like Turn 3 in St. Pete, there are slim chances of having a moment and keeping it out of the wall. But two teammates managed to do just that, with sighs of relief at MSR as Armstrong had the exact same unsettling moment as Rosenqvist but similarly kept the car out of the wall.
But McLaughlin, following Armstrong bringing out the season’s first red flag in the first of the group sessions as he got going again, was not so lucky mere minutes later.
Fresh off announcing a new long-term deal signed with Penske in the off-season, McLaughlin struck the wall on the exit of Turn 3, causing the front-left corner to crumple and triggering the first big repair job of the season. The New Zealander complained of bottoming out on the radio but admitted he made a mistake.
Quick Kirkwood “extremely happy”
Kirkwood has never had the success he would have liked in his home-state race with a best finish of 10th last year, but having finished 18th and 15th in his first two IndyCar visits to St. Pete.
“It’s not lack of pace,” said the native of Jupiter, Florida. “It’s a multitude of things that cause the bad races here. So it will be important to get out of this weekend with some points on the board and a good finish.
“We were in this position last year where we were quick out of the gate. We have to continue that. First official session of the year, we’ve led. Extremely happy with that. Happy that we know our cars are still quick around street courses. All positive.”
Kirkwood comes into 2025 looking to build on an upwards trajectory of championship finishes. While he went winless last year after a two-win first season with Andretti, Kirkwood bettered his 2023 tally of seven top-10 finishes with 13 in 2024, rising four positions to seventh in the standings and ending the season with his first oval pole position.
“We got better as the season progressed,” he said. “We’ve always been really good on street courses but I think we needed to get some things a little bit better at road courses and ovals. Nashville [Superspeedway, the season finale] was impeccable - we were amazing around there.
“I hope this is just a continuation of what we ended the season like last year and hopefully it puts us in a place that we’re true contenders in the championship.”
Andretti enter 2025 with a stable driver lineup, but there have been leadership changes with Michael Andretti stepping back from his day-to-day operational role.
“We’re always refining things,” Kirkwood said. “I’d say leadership for myself has not changed. Our point of contact really is [chief operating officer] Rob Edwards. Of course there are some things that go higher than Rob. For the most part in competition, it’s Rob Edwards.
“My team is pretty much identical to what it has been the past two years. It’s nice coming into a season with a group you already know and trust.”
Newgarden: “It would be gratifying to win”
Newgarden ended the opening day of track action in St. Pete thinking he “didn’t really do a good lap at all” as he looks to defend his pole position from last year. But beyond that, is there any added motivation to win the race after being disqualified as the winner six weeks after the event in 2024 for a push-to-pass violation?
“I think there’s definitely motivation for us to do well. That seems obvious. I won’t shy away from saying that,” he said. “Definitely we want to come out here and do a great job this weekend. It would be very gratifying to win the race.
“I don’t think that needs to be our focus. I don’t see how this year is different. Every year I show up at St. Pete it’s about putting up a solid result on the board. I really mean that - I’m not just trying to be poetic.
“You have to get a result on the board to start the year and you’ve got to start thinking championship right away. If we can come out of this weekend with a good result, a clean car, I think it’s going to be a win.
“Do we ultimately want to have a dominant day, be out front, make a statement? Absolutely. I hope that happens. I’m not going to try to force that. I think we need to get what we can this weekend, what we’re capable of, move on to the next and have a really solid year.”
In other news, it was revealed on Friday that Newgarden has become the first racing driver to sign for the Klutch Sports Group agency, run by the agent of NBA legend Michael Jordan, to support Newgarden’s off-track endeavours.
“I’ve never worked with a commercial agent,” he said. “I think the timing right now, everything that’s going on in the series, the new partnership with FOX, what we’re all collectively trying to do, it’s a good moment in time for them to get involved.
“I got introduced to them over the off-season. When we had a conversation, it seemed pretty obvious we should be doing something together. They’re going to help us grow.”
Ganassi searching for more history
Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) held a special news conference to kick off Friday in St. Pete, celebrating the team’s 35th anniversary .
“I’m too lazy to work and too nervous to steal,” said team owner Chip Ganassi. “All that was left was racing.”
Ganassi was reflecting on the formative days of a team that has gone on to win 23 championships and take over 260 victories across all of its endeavours. The team has won four of the last five IndyCar championships with Dixon and Palou, with Palou a two-time defending champion having won the title in three of his four seasons with the team.
Six-time champion Dixon, most recently title winner in 2020, is bidding to equal A.J. Foyt’s record of seven titles this season in what is his 25th season in IndyCar.
“Is it really?” asked Dixon upon the topic of his long career being raised. “Feels like year two or three.”
But until his career is done, the driver that sits second on the all-time wins list is not willing to think too much about his records or legacy.
“I just want to win,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t really look back. I just look forward to the next race, starting a new season. The fire still burns very strong and, honestly, all I’m focused on is winning this weekend. Once you leave the sport, hopefully you’re happy with what you’ve achieved along the way. But I just care about this weekend.”
Dixon’s biggest motivation at 44 years old?
“Getting beaten.”
Dixon heads into 2025 after finishing sixth in points in 2024, his joint-worst result (tied with 2016) since 2005 when he finished 13th. He has yet to win at St. Pete in his illustrious career, and he comes into the weekend on the back foot after an engine failure on an installation lap during the pre-season test at Sebring.
“It’s definitely not ideal,” Dixon says. “But those are the circumstances that you have sometimes. Any track time is big when we only get one day before the season. That definitely magnifies it a little bit.
“Last year, we got off to a great start, led the championship at the first half of the season and then it went downhill pretty quickly with a lot of things I thought were out of our control. I’d like to think that the off-season for us has been huge in diving in deep and understanding what we need to do for this season. All of us are quietly confident.”
In the sister No.10 CGR Honda, Palou is bidding to become just the fourth-ever driver to win three successive IndyCar championships. He did not even feel at his best in 2024.
“It’s been an amazing two years,” Palou said. “It’s been very different. I would say ‘23 we felt like we had a lot of speed everywhere and were winning a lot of races. And last year we had a lot more issues, a lot more mistakes on track and we just want to get back on form.
“I did not expect [three titles in five years in IndyCar]. My expectation was to try and be part of IndyCar, try and be here for a long time. But Chip decided to give me the best car and the best opportunity to try and win races from the second year. I did not expect that but I love it.”
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