The 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season kicked off with a thrilling race at St. Petersburg, where reigning champion Alex Palou secured his first win of the year. Palou, driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, started eighth in the #10 DHL Honda but took the lead in the final stint, leading 26 laps to the checkered flag. He was followed closely by his teammate, six-time series champion Scott Dixon, who finished second after a late-race pass on Josef Newgarden. Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood rounded out the top five, just ahead of his teammate Marcus Ericsson.
The result marked a dominant performance for Honda-powered teams, with four of them finishing in the top 10. Chip Ganassi Racing’s 1-2 finish was a testament to the team’s hard work during the off-season. Palou was thrilled with the result, stating, “I’m very happy. It’s been a great off-season. Everybody was working super, super hard to try and find ways to improve at places where we have struggled at more recently, like St. Pete. This used to be a difficult race for us and we didn’t always have strong performances, I’m extremely happy that we got the win, and the 1-2 for Chip Ganassi Racing.”
Kirkwood, who finished fifth, expressed his satisfaction with the result, saying, “We finished fifth, which is good! Of course, you always want more, especially after running in fifth nearly all race long. It sometimes feels like you can’t really do much, but that’s the nature of street course racing. We obviously had the right strategy, but we were just a couple laps off execution wise. Good day overall, we’ll take it!”
The next stop for the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES Championship will be at The Thermal Club in California for the first championship points-paying event on March 23rd.