Alex Palou wins St. Pete but INDYCAR champ favorite status must wait

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Don’t engrave Alex Palou’s name on the 2025 INDYCAR championship trophy just yet. 

Yes, he led 26 laps on his way to the victory Sunday afternoon in the season-opening INDYCAR Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Yes, he crossed the finish line 2.8 seconds ahead of teammate Scott Dixon and 6.2 seconds ahead of Josef Newgarden.

And, yes, he already has three championship trophies, including the 2023 and 2024 rings.

"He makes it look easy, doesn’t he?" team owner Chip Ganassi said. "Makes it look easy. Doesn’t sweat."

So in a world where overreacting to sports results is a favorite pastime, don’t be ready to anoint the Spaniard as the 2025 champion.

His competition certainly (and expectedly) isn’t.

"It’s Round 1," said third-place finisher Josef Newgarden. "Let’s see how it goes."

Newgarden felt he could have won but they had fueling issues.

"We just had fuel miscues two times," said Newgarden, who was running out of fuel on the final lap.

Palou teammate Dixon knew what he needed to beat Palou on Sunday after Dixon could not hear his crew tell him when it wanted him to pit — and he pitted a lap later than the crew wanted.

"Get a radio that works," the six-time series champion Dixon said on how to beat Palou. "That would be good."

Palou knows it’s only Race 1 and everything went well for him Sunday. But that isn’t a coincidence. His previous road/street course results are second, fourth, second, first and fourth.

"We’ve always struggled here for some reason, and we got it now to feel like what I need and what we need as drivers to push and to extract 100 percent," Palou said.

"That being said, I don’t think that translates to other racetracks because in the past we’ve been struggling here but not at other