Marcus Ericsson wins wild IndyCar opener after late engine trouble for Pato O’Ward

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Marcus Ericsson won a chaotic IndyCar season opener, leading the final four laps of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg after Pato O’Ward had engine trouble.

O’Ward finished second by 2.4113 seconds and led 23 laps before his No. 5 Dallara-Chevrolet experienced a brief loss of power out of the final corner on Lap 97 of 100.

It’s the fourth career victory for Ericsson and his first since winning last year’s Indy 500. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver became the fourth defending Indy 500 winner to win the opening race of the next season. It’s Ganassi’s second win in St. Pete and first since Dario Franchitti in 2011.

Scott Dixon finished third, followed by Alexander Rossi (in his Arrow McLaren debut) and Callum Ilott in a career-best fifth.

Graham Rahal, Will Power, Alex Palou, Christian Lundgaard and David Malukas rounded out the top 10.

It was a devastating day for Andretti Autosport, which took three of the top six spots in qualifying but had all four of its Dallara-Hondas involved in wrecks.

The last involved pole-sitter Romain Grosjean, who led 31 laps but collided with Scott McLaughlin (who led 37 laps) in Turn 4 on Lap 71 of 100.

McLaughlin received a drive-through penalty from IndyCar for avoidable contact and said after the race he intended to apologize to Grosjean.

“What happened was really obvious on TV, so I’m not going to elaborate too much on that,” Grosjean told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns. “I’m very, very disappointed, and I hope there’s going to be rules put in place. What an amazing weekend. We had a super fast car, and the team did a really good job, but I’m really annoyed to be talking to you with the race going on.

“That’s not racing.”

Andretti teammate Colton Herta also was