ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The 2025 IndyCar season kicked off with an exciting showdown at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, where Alex Palou emerged victorious after an intense battle with two of the sport’s biggest names, Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon.

Between them, the three drivers have amassed 100 career IndyCar wins, but it was Palou who took control, seizing the lead on Lap 74 and leading 26 of the 100 laps on the challenging 1.8-mile, 14-turn street course.

His win marks his first Grand Prix of St. Petersburg victory.

The reigning IndyCar champion, Palou is aiming for a third consecutive season title, and Sunday’s performance showed he’s picking up right where he left off.

Meanwhile, his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Scott Dixon, finished second despite losing radio communication with his team. Dixon, a six-time IndyCar champion, is still searching for his first St. Pete win.

 Ganassi, who is celebrating his 35th season as a team owner this year, noted CGR has not been strong at St. Pete of late, so the 1-2 finish was promising for this year.

“Really good here for us in St. Pete — not one of our favorite tracks. We’ve been challenged here the last number of years,” Ganassi said. “We’re certainly the season favorite until next week or until the next race. I think our cars are better than they were a year ago, at least here in St. Pete. If you saw how we ran here the last, like I said, number of years, it wasn’t great. It was OK, we hung on, but we were clearly being beat by some of the other teams, and that wasn’t the case this weekend. So it was nice.”

Josef Newgarden, who won last year’s race before being stripped of the victory due to a technical infraction, secured a third-place finish.

The race drew an estimated 200,000 fans.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.