• Reigning series champion Alex Palou notches second-place finish in 2022 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
  • Honda drivers, teams claim three of top five finishing positions
  • Uncharacteristically trouble-free race on the city streets

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (February 27, 2022) – Defending series champion Alex Palou got his title defense off to a good start in 2022, taking second place in the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in his #10 Honda-powered Chip Ganassi Racing machine.

2022-St. Pete-Palou

Finishing just half a second behind race winner Scott McLaughlin, Palou’s pivotal moment came during the first round of pit stops. Starting tenth following a practice crash, the #10 crew pitted under caution—due to a crash by rookie David Malukas—and Palou’s crew was able to jump several cars and get the champ out in a net-podium position. The incident would end up being the only caution during the typically-chaotic street race.

2022-St. Pete- Herta

Honda also powered Andretti Autosport drivers Colton Herta—the 2021 St. Pete race winner—and Romain Grosjean to top five finishes to kick off the 2022 season, and claimed 11 of the top 15 finishing positions in the field.

Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Honda Qualifying Results

  •  2nd Alex Palou                          Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
  •  4th Colton Herta                        Andretti Autosport Honda
  •  5th Romain Grosjean                Andretti Autosport Honda
  •  7th Graham Rahal                     Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
  •  8th Scott Dixon                         Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
  •  9th Marcus Ericsson                 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
  • 10th Takuma Sato                      Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda
  • 11th Christian Lundgaard-R        Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda    
  • 13th Jack Harvey                       Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda    
  • 14th Helio Castroneves              Meyer Shank Racing Honda
  • 15th Simon Pagenaud                Meyer Shank Racing Honda
  • 20th Alexander Rossi                 Andretti Autosport Honda
  • 22nd Devlin DeFrancesco-R       Andretti Autosport Honda
  • 23rd Jimmie Johnson                 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
  • 26th David Malukas-R                Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Honda

R – Rookie

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Manufacturers’ Championship (unofficial, after 1 of 17 rounds)

Chevrolet             91 points

Honda                 72 points

 

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Drivers’ Championship Standings (unofficial, after 1 of 17 rounds)

1. Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske                             54 points

2. Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda                 41

3. Will Power, Team Penske                                         36

4. Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport Honda                   32

5. Romain Grosjean, Andretti Autosport Honda           30

 

Quotes:

Alex Palou (#10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) Started 10th, finished second: “First of all, Scott [McLaughlin, race winner] did an amazing job.  Congratulations to him on his first win.  Super happy with the #10 NTT Data Honda car, it was really good today.  If you look at how the result we got today, compared to how [poorly] we started the weekend, I think the entire Chip Ganassi team did an incredible job in coming back and scoring our first podium [finish] of the year. We came up a little short there at the end, but we were close, we were very close. If this is one of our worst races this year, I will be really, really pleased.”

Colton Herta (#26 Andretti Autosport Honda) Started third, finished fourth: “We had a good car and a clean race, and that’s how we wanted to start off the year.  We passed [Rinus] VeeKay there at the end to finish fourth, so I’m happy about how the day went.  For sure we had a small problem early on [the car failed to take a full load of fuel at the first pit stop] that later prevented us from finishing higher up, but overall, happy with our performance throughout the weekend and with the power from our Honda engine.”

David Salters (President and Technical Director, Honda Performance Development) on today’s race: “It was great to see such a huge crowd on hand to open the 2022 INDYCAR season, and hats off to Alex [Palou] and Chip Ganassi Racing.  That was a champions’ drive to bring the car through the field as they did.  Unfortunately, we came up a little short at the end, but that’s racing and we know what we need to do.  On to Texas.”

Next

The NTT INDYCAR SERIES next heads to the high banks of Texas Motor Speedway for the first oval race of 2022, the EXPEL 375, Sunday, March 20, in Fort Worth, Texas.