Round 1: Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, 25 - 27 February.

[bjohnsonsmith]

A Penske front row, that will keep the Captain happy. Congrats to McLaughlin on his first pole.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying result:

A Penske front row shut out, as Scott McLauglin takes his first pole, with will Power second. Last season was not one Penske would want to remember, so a good start to this season but they really need to convert this into a win. Last year's pole sitter and race winner Colton Herta is second. Romain Grosjean is continuing from where he left off last season, with a solid 5th spot. Ganassi drivers Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson just missed the Fast 6 and are 7th and 8th, with team mate and reigning champion Alex Palou in 10th.

Both Dallara and engine manufacturers Chevrolet and Honda must have done some work in the off-season, as lap times are down on last year and the average lap speed is up.

All bodes well for a great race tomorrow.

[gert]

Originally Posted by peebee2

She’s not as slow as Milka Duno but if she gets within a second of the next slowest it’ll be surprising.

In Q1 (both groups combined) she got within a second of ... half the field.
And beat JJ

[NaBUru38]

So Calderón qualified 1.46s behind McLaughlin, and 0.48s slower than Malukas. That's with Foyt.


And JJ qualified 1.55s behind McLaughlin. That's on a Ganassi.


Alright, she's no Simona but she is on par with the other backmarkers.

[mstets]

I've always liked Bourdais. It seems that he is still helping out the Foyt team. Does this mean that he's going to be in a fourth Foyt car at the Speedway?



https://racer.com/2022/02/26/bourdai...ment-kirkwood/


It was great to see the pace of both Kirkwood and Kellett in qualifying. Hoping that the team gets some good results this year. Have they had a better result since Matheus Leist finished fourth at the Indy GP in 2019?


Ilott performed above what I was expecting. He was only .3 seconds from transferring to the fast 12 in group one, roughly .1 seconds slower than Helio and .2 slower than Rossi. Pretty impressive for a small team with a relatively inexperienced driver.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by rwintle

She's going to be eaten alive by the other rookies - which is a shame, but reality. I'm expecting Milka Duno-like race speed (i.e. they may have to black flag her).

EDIT: maybe not, she's at 104% of the leader's pace in the first practice session, which is still very slow but not black flag slow:
http://www.imscdn.com/INDYCAR/Docume...results-p1.pdf

Will be interesting to see how the race plays out, but here are the rookies' qualifying times, in order of their starting positions:


12 Kirkwood 1:00.2616


15 Lundgaard 1:00.0276



18 DeFrancesco 1:00.0850



19 Ilott 1:00.2121



24 Malukus 1:00.4601


25 Calderon 1:00.9391

[Benny1664]

Does anyone know a way to watch indycar in the UK without having the sky sports f1 channel?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Benny1664

Does anyone know a way to watch indycar in the UK without having the sky sports f1 channel?

Officially - no. Sky Sports F1 holds the broadcast rights for the UK, and AFAIK they have not distributed to other providers.

Unofficially - probably not permitted to mention here.

However, if you happen to find yourself in the near future located in a country that is served by a different broadcaster, you may be able to watch that feed.

https://www.indycar.com/ways-to-watch/international

[bjohnsonsmith]

A clean start.

[bjohnsonsmith]

First FCY, as Malukas stops on the track.

[bjohnsonsmith]

That was a bad stop for Rossi.

[joeb]

I misread the timezones and missed first half of the race!

Glad to see Veekay having some success!

Also glad they are still talking about how good JJ is doing.....

[broadrun96]

Something is off with everyone else from Penske today in pits. It's not even close, only a few high 7s, Penske slow stops are mid 7s. McLaughlin's last was 7.3 compared to 8s and 7.8 for Power

When comparing reasonably assumed full fills, Dixie was a 7.3 and tires were done after fueling complete

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by joeb

Also glad they are still talking about how good JJ is doing.....

Except for Hinch, yes better but called him out for being lap or more behind last year. But I have seen print ads with JJ in things I wouldn't have ever expected Indy promo

[joeb]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Something is off with everyone else from Penske today in pits. It's not even close, only a few high 7s, Penske slow stops are mid 7s. McLaughlin's last was 7.3 compared to 8s and 7.8 for Power

The Penske cars are working pretty good on track too! Remember how long it took them to win a race last year? Looks like they could be on the scoreboard a lot earlier this year

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by joeb

The Penske cars are working pretty good on track too! Remember how long it took them to win a race last year? Looks like they could be on the scoreboard a lot earlier this year

Yeah, and most P2P left and not by a small margin for Scott. He's got almost 2 full laps left

[broadrun96]

Hey did you hear, JJ's doing good in this race (for Ganassi at least). Held up Scotty enough for Palou to be on the gearbox and McLaughlin used almost 20 seconds trying to get past

Love their Chevy is doing better on street course talk with 3 in top 4. But it's 3 in Top 12 guys, think a couple drivers are out driving the Hondas today rather than big improvement

[joeb]

Going to be a fuel usage race for Palou, and wonder if VK will make it??

[joeb]

So they praise JJ for holding up the leaders, while Tatiana did the "sporting thing" and let them through.

[rustyfan]

Attaboy Scott! Awesome job!

[joeb]

Pretty intense in traffic at the end, great win for Scotty!!!!!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Congrats to McLaughlin on his maiden victory.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by joeb

So they praise JJ for holding up the leaders, while Tatiana did the "sporting thing" and let them through.

By rule JJ was clear as he made it back to only at the end of the lead lap, she was already 2 laps down and had to move over. So yes, not "sporting"on his part but not illegal. Same held for Devlin, but he may have a longer game to play NOT holding up a Penske. Don't think JJ cares about needing a Penske ride later

[bjohnsonsmith]

Result:
A good race and a good start to the season, particularly for Scott McLaughlin and Team Penske. That was a good drive from Alex Palou, showing us why he is the reigning champion and solid drives from both Romain Grosjean and Rinus Veekay.

Just going on this result, we could be in for a close three-way battle between Andretti Autosport, Ganassi and Penske; I'm looking forward to the rest of the season already. However, Round 2 at TMS isn't until March 20, so a bit of a wait.

[The Fat Clerk]

Nice one Scotty.