Marcus Ericsson wins a chaotic Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

The NTT IndyCar Series kicked off the 2023 season on Sunday afternoon on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Scott McLaughlin was the defending winner of this race. It was an Andretti Autosport front row to start the race with Romain Grosjean on the pole and Colton Herta starting second.

It was a chaotic start to kick off the season when Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist made contact on the first lap at turn three causing a chain reaction in the back and leading to a six-car pile-up.

Santino Ferrucci spun Helio Castroneves collecting Simon Pagenaud, Sting Ray Robb, Devlin DeFrancesco, and Benjamin Pederson. Pederson crashed into DeFrancesco, sending his car up in the air before landing. Pederson’s spotter should’ve done a better job telling him to slow down. Pederson had time to apply the brakes and might have been able to continue the race.

The race was red-flagged for 30 minutes. Grosjean led the opening 31 laps before pitting. From there Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon led laps before the next caution came out on lap 37 when Conor Daly got loose and spun at turn nine.

Five laps after the race resumed, the third caution came out on lap 42 when Rinus VeeKay got wide and hit the tire wall at turn four while Jack Harvey hit him and Kyle Kirkwood went airborne before landing. Surprisingly, Kirkwood was able to continue the race. However, the same could not be said for Jack Harvey, who was transported to a local hospital for further evaluation. After the race, Harvey was released from Bayfront Medical Center.

Seven laps after the race resumed, Colton Herta was the latest driver to meet the tire wall at turn eight that brought out the fourth caution. Will Power made contact with Herta leading to him crashing into the tire wall.

On lap 72, Scott McLaughlin made his last pit stop while Grosjean, who pitted a lap earlier, closed in on him. McLaughlin got in front of Grosjean exiting pit road. The two went at it before colliding into the tire wall on turn four which brought out the fifth caution flag. Neither driver wanted to give an inch but McLaughlin on cold tires should’ve let Grosjean bye and regroup. McLaughlin was able to finish the race but was issued a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.

Pato O’Ward was the new leader with 29 laps to go. In the closing stages of the race, O’Ward’s car had a plenum fire that caused his engine to briefly shut off exiting turn 14 and Marcus Ericsson drove by him with three laps to go and won his fourth career race by 2.4113 seconds over O’Ward.

 “I feel bad for Pato for having the issue, but that’s racing,” said Ericsson in victory lane. “You need to get there to the finish line. We were having such a good weekend. The car was fantastic all the way through. We were hunting him down, putting the pressure on, and that’s when things happen. It was a hell of a start to the season.”  

 “We did everything right today,” said a dejected Pato O’Ward. “There’s always something. The boys deserved that. Compared to where we were here last year, this is a massive step. But we gave that one away. We can’t have that happen anymore. I know we’re second, but …”

The rest of the top ten finishers were Scott Dixon third, Alexander Rossi fourth, Callum Ilott fifth, Graham Rahal sixth, Will Power seventh, Alex Palou eighth, Christian Lundgaard ninth, and David Malukas tenth.

The NTT IndyCar Series heads to Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, April 2^nd at 12 pm on NBC and Peacock. Tickets for the event are available on StubHub.

Finishing Order: