Team Penske silenced recent criticism aimed at series leadership by dominating the IndyCar season-opening race with a Josef Newgarden win from the pole Sunday on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg.
Pato O'Ward of Arrow McLaren Racing broke up the Penske rout with a second-place finish, but Penske drivers Scott McLaughlin and Will Power finished third and fourth. The Penske trio finished ahead of every Andretti Global driver two days after team owner Michael Andretti called on Roger Penske to sell the IndyCar Series if he's not willing to increase his investments in promotion and marketing.
Colton Herta in fifth was the highest-finishing driver for Andretti, which had a bust of a day with new driver Marcus Ericsson. The former Indianapolis 500 winner lost power midway through the race and finished 25th in the 27-car field. Ericsson was the defending race winner at St. Pete, which celebrated its 20th running of the popular street course event.
Reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou finished sixth for Chip Ganassi Racing and Felix Rosenqvist was seventh in his debut race with Meyer Shank Racing.
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Alexander Rossi of McLaren was eighth, while Scott Dixon of Ganassi and Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing rounded out the top 10. Santino Ferrucci was an impressive 11th for A.J. Foyt Racing, which created an alliance with Penske.
The win for Penske is his third season-opening win this year alone. His IMSA sports car team won the Rolex 24 at Daytona and his other sports car team won the WEC opener in Qatar last week.
Penske hugged Newgarden in victory lane and the NBC cameras caught their conversation: “I was thinking of you at the end of that race, keep it together, like you told me.”
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Newgarden then expanded on the conversation.
“Roger was telling me, if you have a big lead, you better hold onto it and not throw it in the wall,” Newgarden said.
The victory also continued Chevrolet's impressive start to 2024; headed into the Cup Series race in Phoenix later Sunday, Chevy had won the first three Cup races of the season, all three Truck Series races and two of four Xfinity Series races.
Chevrolet went 1-2-3-4 in the IndyCar opener and had seven cars in the top 11.
Newgarden, the reigning Indianapolis 500 winner, led 92 of the 100 laps as he had the field covered.
“I had a lot of fun today, a lot of fun,” Newgarden said.
UP NEXT: IndyCar races at the Thermal Club in California in an all-star style exhibition race with a $1 million payout. The series tested at the members-only club in 2023 to gauge its readiness to host a race.
