Written by Archie O’Reilly
As the 2025 IndyCar season looms a little over one week away after over five months of off-season, teams and drivers had some rare full-field test running at Sebring International Raceway this week.
The test on the 1.67-mile ‘short course’ consisted of two days of two half-field group sessions; the first group ran in the first and fourth sessions and the second group ran in the second and third.
Here is the story of how the two days unfolded in Florida…
Monday: Morning session
Pato O’Ward was the pace-setter in the opening session of the test for Arrow McLaren. Coming off a busy off-season juggling commitments as reserve driver for McLaren’s Formula One team, O’Ward slotted back into his No.5 Chevy with a margin of 0.1478 seconds to the rest of the field to kick Monday off.
“It’s the best feeling in the world. It's the best job in the world,” said O’Ward, whose best time from his 47 laps held as the quickest across both groups on the first day. “I’ve been so excited to get back into an Indy car; my first test in ‘25 was in a Formula One car, but whether you believe me or not, I was so excited to come back to Sebring.
“It definitely feels like home and it’s a second family to me. I want to finish every lap this year, and if I do that, I think I’ll be sitting real pretty in Nashville.”
Two-time defending and three-time champion Alex Palou was second and O’Ward’s new teammate Christian Lundgaard third - little over three-tenths off the Mexican driver’s quickest time.
“It’s always fun to get to drive,” Lundgaard said. “It’s been a long off-season and it’s been a lot of work behind the scenes, obviously changing teams to Arrow McLaren and just getting used to the personnel, the procedures in general. But it’s been good.
“The first couple of laps, I have some rust I need to shake off. But it doesn’t take more than a couple of laps and you’re back up to pace. I’m not here to spend a couple of races getting up to speed - I really want to be competitive from the get-go.”
Impressively, Juncos Hollinger Racing (JHR)’s fresh addition Sting Ray Robb finished the opening morning of running in fourth. Marcus Armstrong was fifth as he switches to Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) in the No.66 Honda, with Kyle Kirkwood sixth for Andretti Global and David Malukas seventh for new team AJ Foyt Racing.
“It’s always long,” said Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR)’s Palou after his P2 run. “It’s nice to be back with the team and testing stuff. We have so many ideas. I also want to get the rust off myself. I’m super hungry - I just want to keep on having this [winning] feeling.”
Team Penske’s only morning runner Scott McLaughlin was eighth, followed by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) rookie and reigning Indy NXT champion Louis Foster. The most productive driver of the morning was Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR) sophomore Christian Rasmussen, placing 10th after 71 laps.
The morning order was rounded out by Marcus Ericsson, Graham Rahal, Rinus VeeKay (in a first outing as an official Dale Coyne Racing driver) and rookie Robert Shwartzman for the debuting PREMA Racing team.
“Feels good,” Rahal said. “All winter there’s so much prep, there’s so much questioning of: ‘Are we better? Are we not? Did we do this right?’ New people you’re working with… so it’s nice to just shake off the rust. I haven’t driven anything since the last race of [2024] so it’s great to be out here and turn some laps.
“Last year, we actually had an underrated start to the year; if you look at St. Pete, we were running in the top seven until we got caught out by the yellow - Barber was the exact same. Then it seemed like everything broke loose after that: Indy, motor failures and all the things that set us back week in, week out.
“It’s critical for us as a team to start off in a positive manner. I think the team is clicking well. The organisation and engineering department is night and day - we’ve always had strong people but I felt like, just from a pure structure standpoint this is something I’ve never seen at RLL. I am excited.”
Monday: Afternoon session
With teammate Felix Rosenqvist down with a fever, MSR newbie Armstrong took the wheel of the sister No.60 Honda in the afternoon and was the only driver to run both sessions on Monday. And the New Zealander, returning for a third season in IndyCar in 2025, topped the time sheets in the afternoon.
“In the end, we limited the running on the No.60 car to save tires for Felix,” Armstrong said. “But I feel really fresh, feel like I haven’t done anything, feel like I could do it all again. So happy that I'm not tired after doing so many laps.”
Possibly with the day’s headline lap time, Conor Daly was second for JHR in the afternoon - 0.2256 seconds behind pace-setter Armstrong. Daly’s time was enough for fourth on the overall speed charts, which saw the top 10 split evenly between those running in the morning and afternoon.
“We were fast all day in our group so that’s really encouraging,” Daly said. “We made a lot of progress with a lot of changes that we wanted to get through. And that’s what this testing is for. It’s so important. To be fast and at the front, that’s our goal every day.”
Will Power was third for Penske in the afternoon, followed by 2024 vice champion Colton Herta for Andretti. Callum Ilott placed an impressive fifth for PREMA as the team continues to adapt to its newest venture.
Santino Ferrucci was sixth for Foyt, leading DCR rookie and reigning Indy NXT champion Jacob Abel in a creditable seventh. Josef Newgarden was eighth for Penske, followed by the returning Devlin DeFrancesco for RLL.
Nolan Siegel was 10th but suffered the only incident with contact on Monday, hitting the barriers at the exit of Turn 7. Siegel was unhurt but his No.6 Arrow McLaren Chevy suffered moderate damage to the right side and rear.
CGR duo Kyffin Simpson and Scott Dixon were 11th and 13th in the afternoon order after logging only 17 and two laps respectively, sandwiching now-ECR’s Alexander Rossi.
Tuesday: Morning session
Penske rounded out the morning running on the second day one-two, with Power quickest ahead of Newgarden by 0.0642 seconds. These times held up as the two fastest of the test, with seven of the top 10 times from across the two days recorded in the cooler Tuesday morning temperatures.
“After a couple days back in the car, you feel right at home - back to the same old stuff and going through the same old changes and just confirming stuff,” Power said. “I know it so well now. But it’s never the same so you’ve got to be on your toes. [It is a] super-tight field.
“Definitely want to finish off the season better than last year. The last few races were such a disappointment. Definitely determined to come back for a very smooth year.”
Herta rounded out Tuesday morning behind the Penske duo, followed by Siegel, who recovered well from his Monday crash. Ilott continued his impressive form in the early days of PREMA’s IndyCar journey, once again slotting into the top five.
Rosenqvist recovered enough from his Monday illness to take the wheel of his MSR machine, driving it to sixth on the time sheets. Daly was seventh as JHR solidified a strong test, with DeFrancesco the most productive driver on Tuesday, logging 93 laps en-route to finishing the morning session in eighth.
“This test overall has been really fun just to get back in the car,” Daly said. “You train all winter - you bust your butt trying to make sure that you are ready for this moment because these cars are so hard to drive. So evaluating where you are fitness wise, that’s also important because it’s the only time we get in the car before St. Pete.
“Really happy with our pace. You try things. Some things don’t work - part of this testing is to find what doesn’t work too. We’re pretty happy. A lot of information gained. I’ve never gone to St. Pete with this much confidence.”
Dixon notched 56 laps on Tuesday after being limited to only two the day prior due to a mechanical issue, albeit a rocky test was compounded by a crash in Turn 6 around 15 minutes into the Tuesday morning session. Minor rear damage was repaired and he returned to the track to end the morning running in ninth.
The 13-driver field was rounded out by Ferrucci, Rossi, Abel and Simpson.
Tuesday: Afternoon session
On Tuesday afternoon, Armstrong topped the time sheets again to continue his impressive form in the early stages with MSR, showcasing the value of keeping his core engineering group from CGR by virtue of the new technical alliance between the teams.
Armstrong narrowly led Florida native Kirkwood, with O’Ward around one-tenth of a second off the lead pace. Lundgaard was again quick in his new situation with Arrow McLaren, placing fourth and only two-hundredths behind O’Ward. VeeKay showed early pace with DCR to round out the top five.
A fruitful second day saw PREMA competitive with both cars as the No.83 Chevy of Shwartzman finished sixth, ahead of Rahal, Palou and Malukas. McLaughlin was unable to quite replicate the pace of his Penske teammates, rounding out Tuesday afternoon in 10th and 24th on the overall time sheets.
Robb was 11th, followed by Ericsson, who ended the test with the slowest time across both days, Foster and Rasmussen.
“It’s been a long off-season,” Ericsson said. “I’ve worked really hard. The team has worked really hard. It’s nice to be back out on the race track, back out driving and just enjoying driving Indy cars.
“We had a tough year last year - we had six DNFs I think. Obviously that puts us back quite a bit. But we had a lot of potential, a lot of good speed at pretty much every track we went to. So potential is there. This year is about putting that potential together and actually getting the results with it.”
With logging laps a primary objective, only Rosenqvist, Dixon and Simpson failed to surpass the 100-lap mark. Particularly for the rookie crop of Foster, Abel and Shwartzman - plus the latter’s PREMA team - this was a crucial test ahead of all making their debuts in St. Pete.
“Happy with the test,” Foster said. “The team has gone through quite a large restructuring over the winter so there’s been quite a lot of personnel changes, new people coming in or people changing their roles within the team or changing cars.
“This test was a lot for us about getting everything working correctly and smoothly - that was the main goal for the test. And it went really well. We made a lot of progress with our setups and where we wanted to be.
“We’ve got a good idea where we want to be for St. Pete. Hopefully it will allow us to hit the ground running when we get there. As a whole, super happy and looking forward to the start of the year.”
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