Josef Newgarden dominates in the season opener in St. Petersburg

The NTT IndyCar Series kicked off the 2024 season on Sunday afternoon in the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg from the streets in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden started the race on the pole with Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist starting second which made up the front row.

Once the green flag was waived, it was the Josef Newgarden show. He dominated the race leading 92 of 100 laps to win the race by 7.9121 seconds over Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward. The other drivers to lead laps at St. Peterburg were Christian Lundgaard (7) and Colton Herta (1).

There were only three cautions in the race. The first one happened on lap 27 when Marcus Armstrong made contact with the wall at Turn 10 and was the first car out of the race. On lap 35, Sting Ray Robb went off the course at Turn 1 and finished in 26^th place, and on lap 69, Linus Lundqvist made contact with Romain Grosjean at Turn 10 and hit the wall.

Grosjean was issued a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact but the replay showed that Lundqvist came down on Grosjean which triggered the accident. After the accident, Grosjean had mechanical issues and he finished in 24^th place. Also dealing with a mechanical issue was Marcus Ericsson of Andretti Global on lap 52 finishing in 25^th place.

Newgarden now has 30 career wins in the IndyCar Series. This is a great start for Newgarden in the 2024 season. In January, Newgarden won the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona with Team Penske Porsche in the GTP Class.

“I had a lot of fun today. I think it’s so deserving for the work they (Team Penske) put in,” said Newgarden in victory lane. “We’ve worked really hard to close the gap. We didn’t have the speed we needed on road and street courses last year, at least on a consistency basis, and today we brought that speed. We had the execution, as always.”

The NTT IndyCar Series next race will be the $1 Million Challenge, an exhibition race at The Thermal Club in Riverside County, California, on Sunday, March 24, 2024, at 12:30 pm on NBC. Subscribe to Fubo to watch all of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season. Purchase tickets for all IndyCar races today on StubHub and Viagogo.

Finishing Order: