Palou, Dixon kick off IndyCar season with Honda 1-2

• Reigning NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion Alex Palou wins first race of 2025
• Scott Dixon makes it a Chip Ganassi Honda 1-2
• Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood goes P5 in season opener

Alex Palou started his charge for a fourth NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship, and third in a row, with a statement race at St. Petersburg, leading home a Honda 1-2 to kick off the new year.

Palou started the race in eighth after just missing out on the Firestone Fast Six in qualifying, and took command of the race in the final stint, leading 26 laps to the checkered flag.

Palou would come home just in front of his Chip Ganassi Racing Honda teammate Scott Dixon. The six-time series champion managed to take home second through a combination of fuel saving and an impressive late-race pass on Josef Newgarden. 

Kyle Kirkwood rounded out the top five for Honda and Andretti Global, finishing just ahead of teammate Marcus Ericsson. Felix Rosenqvist finished seventh for Meyer Shank Racing, and Rinus VeeKay finished ninth in his Honda debut with Dale Coyne Racing—making it four separate Honda teams in the top 10 to start the year.

Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Honda Qualifying Results

• 1st Alex Palou                       -        Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
• 2nd Scott Dixon                     -       Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
• 5th Kyle Kirkwood                 -       Andretti Global Honda
• 6th Marcus Ericsson             -       Andretti Global Honda
• 7th Felix Rosenqvist             -       Meyer Shank Racing Honda
• 9th Rinus VeeKay                -        Dale Coyne Racing Honda
• 12th Graham Rahal             -       Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
• 16th Colton Herta                -       Andretti Global Honda
• 18th Kyffin Simpson            -       Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
• 22nd Devlin DeFrancesco   -      Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
• 23rd Jacob Abel-R               -     Dale Coyne Racing Honda
• 24th Marcus Armstrong       -     Meyer Shank Racing Honda – not running (contact)
• 27th Louis Foster-R             -     Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda – not running (contact)

R – Rookie

Quotes
Alex Palou (#10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) finished first: "Number one! I’m very happy. It has been a great off season. Everybody was working super, super hard to try and find ways to improve at places where we have struggled at more recently, like St. Pete. This used to be a difficult race for us and we didn’t always have strong performances, I’m extremely happy that we got the win, and the 1-2 for Chip Ganassi Racing. Amazing job by HRC and everyone on the #10 DHL Honda. We’re hungry for more"

Kyle Kirkwood (#27 Andretti Global Honda) finished fifth: "We finished fifth, which is good! Of course, you always want more, especially after running in fifth nearly all race long. It sometimes feels like you can’t really do much, but that’s the nature of street course racing. We obviously had the right strategy, but we were just a couple laps off execution wise. Good day overall, we’ll take it! We want the win, we were running there right there with Palou the entire race, so the pace was there, but he got us on the pit stops"

David Salters (President, Honda Racing Corporation USA): "Huge congratulations to Alex Palou, Scott Dixon, and Chip Ganassi Racing. It was a masterclass performance, which is always a delightful sight to behold. They exhibited a fantastic display of teamwork. Very well done to the marvelous men and women at Honda Racing Corporation, let’s keep pushing to carry this momentum into the rest of the season. It was a great day for Honda-powered teams overall, with Chip Ganassi Racing, Andretti Global, Meyer Shank Racing and Dale Coyne Racing, and all present in the top ten. Excellent results across the board"

Next
The 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES Championship now moves to California for the first championship points-paying event at The Thermal Club March 23rd.

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