The first IndyCar race weekend of 2025 is over and almost everything looked different, except for victory lane.
In a strategy-filled race, the driver of the DHL #10 Chip Ganassi Honda, Alex Palou, found himself in familiar territory, in victory lane, something he’s done 12 times in the last 5 seasons. The 3-time champion started 8th and calmly worked his way up to the front as we have seen him do time and time again.
“It’s massive,” Palou said to racer.com reporter Marshall Pruet post-race while talking about starting his championship defense with a victory. “It shows everybody in the shop that their work means a lot. Super happy that we got the win, amazing job by HRC and the No. 10 team. So hungry for more.”
On the broadcast side, it was an amazing debut for the FOX crew. The broadcast went smoothly as Will Buxton, James Hinchcliffe, and Townsand Bell called a great race and there were minimal hiccups, something you’d expect to happen during the first full broadcast as a team. I was especially impressed by the graphics package that FOX has brought to IndyCar. All graphics were informational, relevant, and looked fantastic, something that was an inconsistent truth in past seasons.
One critique I have for FOX is that they did not have live timing and scoring data during qualifying, a graphic that NBC displayed. This data allows the viewer to know how much faster or slower than the current fastest time a certain driver is going. For example, it would tell you that Alexander Rossi was going 4 tenths of a second faster than Alex Palou’s current fastest time of the session at that point in his lap. This data would update throughout the lap.
Although not having this information does make the crossing of the timing line more dramatic, as a fan I missed the ability to see who was on a flyer and who was just cooling down their engine. If I had one wish from this weekend, it would be for FOX to add this technology to future qualifying broadcasts.
One thing that I thought FOX did very well over the weekend was promoting the drivers in a way that their personalities were able to shine through. In other words, putting a face to a name.
Because drivers wear helmets and are unrecognizable while they are driving their cars, many new fans see unfamiliar names and a car number, which creates very little emotional attachment and thus, little interest in the sport. The best example of how FOX did this was through the miniature news packages that they made about many popular drivers which were played throughout the race, often coming out of commercial breaks. Another example is FOX’s pile-on graphic that shows the top 5 drivers’ faces along with their names and car numbers. By putting a face and personality to a name, FOX is engaging new viewers emotionally and hopefully convincing them to come back and see what IndyCar is all about.
In light of showing people what IndyCar is all about, IndyCar is famous for the amazing racing created by tire degradation, and there is no more perfect example of that than this weekend. Due to a request by the drivers and team owners, Firestone brought an alternate tire this weekend that wore off very quickly, very few drivers were able to make the green-walled tires last more than 15 laps, compared to the 30+ lap stints that were being done on the black-walled primary tire.
For those unfamiliar with IndyCar, there are three sets of tires that teams can use throughout the weekend, one of which is a rain tire. The alternate tire, which is marked by either a green or red line around the tire, is a softer tire that is made to be fast immediately, but degrades quite quickly over time. On the contrary, the black-marked primary tire is designed to be moderately fast at first but degrade less over time. This creates a point that is called “the crossover” where the alternate tire has degraded to the point where the performance is lower than the slower degrading primary tire. This creates an unbelievable amount of passing and the great racing that IndyCar is famous for.
IndyCar teams have 3 different types of tires available to them each weekend. The alternate tire will be marked with green on street course weekends due to the innovative eco-friendly makeup of the tire. Photo credit to @FirestoneRacing on X.
This weekend’s tire makeup created a situation where drivers never wanted to be on the alternate tire for more than 10 laps but were forced to due to the stint lengths. The racing that came from it was as high quality as IndyCar promises each race weekend.
In a race with such a difficult strategy due to the large difference in tire life, it was revealed that the second-place finisher, 6 time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, had lost his radio communication with his team before the race started and strategized the race himself from the cockpit to a second-place finish. Not only is this an extremely impressive feat because he drove his race car for 2 hours, only accompanied by the sound of his engine, but he also had the knowledge to strategize the entire race by himself while also dealing with all of the other factors that drivers have to take into account on a real-time basis.
“I’m pretty [mad],” Scott Dixon said to racer.com reporter Marshall Pruet after the race, “We had a good race going, and you know, we didn’t get it done. Doesn’t feel good, that’s for sure.”
Finishing second in the NTT IndyCar Series is an amazing feat in itself, but doing it in this fashion, and the fact that even despite the circumstances Dixon was not satisfied with second, just attests to the argument of why Scott Dixon might be the greatest IndyCar driver of all time.
St. Pete brought the strategic excitement and on-track action that made for an amazing first weekend of the FOX era of IndyCar and we look forward to when cars are back on track after a 3-week break at The Thermal Club. That race can be found on March 23rd at 3pm, live on FOX.
For more IndyCar news, opinions, and race storylines tune into the Across the Bricks podcast with myself and Justin Scott 25’, streaming on Spotify and the Irish Connection Website.
