Newgarden Starts Year Off with Victory at St. Petersburg

Josef Newgarden used a great pit strategy and was fortunate with traffic to come away with a victory at the opening race of the 2o19 IndyCar season at St. Petersburg on Sunday afternoon. Newgarden led for the final 60 laps of the race to win for the first time at St. Petersburg.

Will Power took a record eighth pole at St. Petersburg in 10 years during qualifying on Saturday, but Newgarden was only a tenth of a second behind him in the Firestone Fast Six Shootout to determine pole. Newgarden was in second place as the 24 cars approached the green flag to begin the race, but Power rocketed forward in the lead as Felix Rosenqvist dove inside to take second place from Newgarden. The cars ran in the same order until Sebastien Bourdais had engine problems on lap 14, causing Power to dive into the pits early to avoid getting stuck on track while the pits close during a caution. However, no yellow flags came out and the rest of the leaders pitted a few laps later after Rosenqvist inherited the lead from Power.

Ryan Hunter-Reay’s mechanical failure on lap 20 brought the leaders back together on a yellow flag, and Rosenqvist used a daring move on Power to pass him at Turn 1 to take the lead. Power stayed within striking distance over the next 30 laps before pitting on lap 51 for his second stop. Rosenqvist came in only a lap later, but Power was able to narrowly avoid clashing with the Swedish driver as he exited the pits and came out in front.

Newgarden made the bold decision to stay out for multiple extra laps after the other leaders pitted, meaning a yellow flag would effectively end his race as he would be forced to pit and join the field at the back. Marco Andretti held up Power and allowed Scott Dixon and Rosenqvist to catch him as Newgarden was putting in quick laps, allowing Newgarden to claim first place after a quick pit stop. The Honda-powered cars teamed up to hold up Newgarden later in the race as well, but Newgarden was able to get around Andretti and hold onto his lead that had been cut down to less than two seconds by Dixon as the race came to a close. Penske continued their dominance at St. Pete’s by winning their ninth race at the track since 2006.

Winners

• Josef Newgarden. Duh.
• Will Power. After two difficult finishes at St. Pete’s the last two years, Power put together a strong weekend to grab a big points haul as they head to Circuit of the Americas in two weeks. A goal for Team Penske that was brought up time-and-time again during the weekend was to get better on street courses in 2019. Finishing in first, third and seventh should keep Roger Penske happy for the time being.
• Scott Dixon. After a hectic qualifying session that almost saw him start 13th before a penalty on Takuma Sato advanced him to the next round, a competitive second place finish isn’t a bad result for the Kiwi. This was his fourth runner-up finish at St. Pete’s, and it’s one of the few tracks that’s been run for years that he hasn’t won at. He also didn’t have his drink system working properly today, so kudos to him for toughing it out in the sweltering Florida heat.
• Rookies. Felix Rosenqvist put in some big moves and held with the leaders all day to look like a worthy teammate of five-time champ Dixon. Colton Herta and Santino Ferrucci also completed their first top-10 finishes in the series, taking advantage of track position and some good pace.

Losers

• Ryan Hunter-Reay. The driver who can’t seem to catch a break continued to have bad luck when his engine blew on lap 19 as he was going down the main straightaway into turn 1. Being 46 points behind the leader is a tough margin after only one round for the former series champ.
• Sebastien Bourdais. A trendy pick to claim his third-straight win at St. Pete’s, Bourdais had engine problems on lap 9 and had no chance to show if he could put together another drive from the back of the field.
• Marcus Ericsson. The former Formula 1 driver went on a different strategy by pitting only seven laps into the race for the harder compound tires, but he was able to rise back into the top-10 by the middle stint of the race. However, a mechanical issue caused him to return to the pits on lap 54 and end his debut early. He will have a chance to bounce back in two weeks at COTA. He has more experience than the rest of the field combined through his four Formula 1 starts at the track, including a 10th place finish last season.

How my picks finished

Push2Pass fared pretty well in the first week, correctly picking Power to grab the pole and getting two of the three podium finishers correct in Dixon and Power. However, I failed to pick any of the finishers in the correct order and picked Rossi to finish second when he came home in fifth. The quest for the perfect lineup will continue when IndyCar races in Austin for the first time on March 24.