The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was a race full of strategy, where reigning champion Alex Palou once again proved to be the best. Palou secured the victory by gaining more than eight seconds on Scott McLaughlin in just five laps! What stood out during the season opener? We analyze the race weekend through a series of numbers!

106 - On the tight streets of St. Petersburg, 106 overtakes were recorded, 97 of which were for position. That is significantly more than last year, when 75 overtakes were recorded, including 53 for position.

96.118 - The average race speed was 96.118 mph (154.668 km/h), resulting in a total race time of 1:52:21.6997. Of the previous five editions of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, only the 2023 race lasted longer — the others were roughly one minute shorter.

69 - Looking at the two best-performing drivers per team, Team Penske was the top-performing team — Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden combined for 69 points. That is one more than Chip Ganassi Racing with Alex Palou and Kyffin Simpson, and three more than Arrow McLaren with Christian Lundgaard and Pato O’Ward.

62.2131 - The fastest lap of the race was set by Kyle Kirkwood: on lap 68 he recorded a lap time of 1:02.2131 (62.2131 seconds), underlining his strong drive to fourth place.

59 - Alex Palou delivered another championship-worthy performance, leading 59 of the 100 laps despite starting only fourth. He therefore led the most laps of any driver.

54 - Dale Coyne Racing finished eighth and tenth with Romain Grosjean and Dennis Hauger. The last time the team finished with both cars inside the top ten was at WWT Raceway in 2022 — 54 races ago! For a double top-ten finish on a non-oval, you have to go back even further: Laguna Seca in 2021, 70 races ago.

32.3757 - Scott Dixon recorded the fastest full-service pit stop of the race at 32.3757 seconds. The fastest average pit stops were delivered by the #76 Juncos Hollinger Racing crew of Rinus VeeKay.

23 - Josef Newgarden drove an impressive recovery race: starting 23rd, he worked his way up to seventh at the finish — gaining sixteen positions, the most of any driver.

20 - The St. Petersburg win marked Alex Palou’s 20th IndyCar victory. He now moves up to 23rd on the all-time IndyCar winners list.

12.4948 - At the finish, McLaughlin’s gap to Palou had grown to 12.4948 seconds. This marks the largest margin between the winner and runner-up in the history of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. The previous largest margin came in the inaugural race in 2003, when Paul Tracy won by 12.136 seconds over Michel Jourdain Jr.

10 - Rinus VeeKay and Christian Lundgaard showed the most confidence in their cars during the race, completing the highest number of overtakes in the field. Both drivers finished the race with ten overtakes to their name.

9 - The top ten at the finish of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg was truly international; no fewer than nine different countries were represented: Spain, New Zealand, Denmark, the United States (2x), Mexico, Sweden, France, the Netherlands and Norway.

8.1339 - Alex Palou won the race thanks to a highly successful overcut during the first round of pit stops. Before the stops, Palou was running third behind Marcus Ericsson and Scott McLaughlin. The reigning champion pitted four laps later than McLaughlin, who lost significant time battling on track. From lap 35 through lap 39 (from McLaughlin’s in-lap to Palou’s out-lap), McLaughlin lost a total of 8.1339 seconds to Palou! Of that time, McLaughlin lost 0.2633 seconds in the pits, with the remainder lost on track.

8 - Dennis Hauger’s third-place starting position was highly impressive. It marked the best qualifying result for a driver making his IndyCar debut since Robert Wickens qualified on pole position in 2018 — eight years ago.

8 - The race featured eight lead changes among seven different drivers: Alex Palou (59 laps), Scott McLaughlin (34 laps), Louis Foster (2 laps), Scott Dixon (2 laps), Marcus Ericsson (1 lap), Christian Lundgaard (1 lap) and Josef Newgarden (1 lap) each led at least one lap.

3 - Despite now having 20 IndyCar victories to his name, this was only Alex Palou’s third win on a street circuit. It was, however, his second victory on the streets of St. Petersburg.

2 - Dennis Hauger enjoyed a solid IndyCar debut: the Norwegian rookie qualified an impressive third, stayed out of trouble during the race, and ultimately crossed the finish line in tenth place. He was comfortably the best-performing rookie.

2 - Race control only needed to intervene twice with a caution period: first for the opening-lap crash involving Sting Ray Robb, Santino Ferrucci and Mick Schumacher and second for the loose wheel of Scott Dixon in Turn 4.

1 - Race control had a quiet afternoon — only one penalty was issued: Sting Ray Robb received a 30-second stop-and-go penalty for the collision with Santino Ferrucci on the opening lap.

0 - Dennis Hauger still needs to build confidence within the IndyCar field — he was the only driver to finish the race without completing a single overtake.

0 - Alexander Rossi and Rinus VeeKay were immovable objects during the race in St. Petersburg — among all finishing drivers, they were the only ones who were not overtaken a single time!