Thrilling IndyCar provides perfect tonic to F1's desert of entertainment

Marcus Ericsson won out at IndyCar's Florida round in a chaotic race which ended in crashes for Romain Grosjean, Colton Herta and Scott McLaughlin

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IndyCar start St Petersburg 2023

Ultra-competitive field put on a show round classic St Petersburg street circuit

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So that was many times more captivating than the Bahrain Grand Prix. Less than an hour after the flag fell on the deflating Formula 1 season opener in Sakhir – well, mostly deflating: thank the racing gods for Fernando Alonso, eh? – the 2023 IndyCar campaign kicked off in sensational fashion on the tight streets of St Petersburg in Florida. It was just the tonic after the dry dirge in the desert.

The two big shunts were a concern and the stream of safety car interruptions grew a little old. But IndyCar’s high levels of driver safety were at least shown off at their best as no one was seriously hurt, and even with the five caution periods 100 laps of the intense 1.8-mile street circuit passed in a flash of energy and excitement. It was one hell of a show.

The headline talking point was the unhappy collision between Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Andretti’s Romain Grosjean as they duelled for the win. Running on split strategies, it all came down to the second and final round of pitstops. As rivals behind the pair peeled off to take on fresh tyres and fuel for the final run to the finish, McLaughlin and Grosjean were facing off out front, pushing it as far as they could to see who would blink first.

Scott McLaughlin Romain Grosjean IndyCar St Petersburg

Grosjean and McLaughlin became locked in fierce battle

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Grosjean was impressive in St Pete, and in all honesty he had to be. The feelgood move to the US after his F1 career came to a terrifying end in that Bahrain fireball has lost some of its sheen of late. Starting his third season, and second with Andretti, the Frenchman’s old reputation for finding trouble with rivals has followed him across the Atlantic and he knows he’s in overtime to score a first victory. Grosjean set himself up to break his duck with a fine pole position on the Florida street track, then led the early stages comfortably, nursing his soft ‘alternate’ tyres in a manner team-mate Colton Herta couldn’t running behind him. In fact most who started on the green-labelled rubber struggled to make them last, so there was added kudos to Grosjean for making the strategy work with the advantage of clean air.

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But when the first round of stops had shaken out, it was McLaughlin – who had started sixth on the harder ‘prime’ Firestones – that held the advantage out front. Grosjean looked desperate to win back his lead as he tracked the No3 Penske entry through every turn. The trouble was McLaughlin, who won here last season, knew that as long as he made a clean exit out of the final Turn 14 onto the main straight – an airport runway on which Grosjean had landed his own plane a few days earlier – the ex-Haas F1 ace was powerless to do much in attack. That’s why it all came down to the final pitstops.

Grosjean as the driver following threw the dice first and pitted, in an attempt to undercut into the lead. But the Penske crew, which had already played a big part in handing McLaughlin his edge in the first place, were flawless once more as the ex-Aussie Supercars king stopped a lap later. The Penske Dallara accelerated back out on to the track almost exactly as Grosjean’s yellow DHL racer fired into Turn 2. McLaughlin had it – just.

But he was on cold tyres, and Grosjean knew he had one final chance to win this race by making the most of his warm rubber on the run into Turn 4. McLaughlin blocked the inside route, so Grosjean jinked left and was later on the brakes… He turned in, but not fully ahead – and McLaughlin refused to yield, losing the backend and skittling the Andretti and himself off the circuit.

McLaughlin probably should have relented, but few pure-blood racers would have backed out in the same situation. Still, two into that corner was never likely go and what had been a great battle ended in a sorry collision, with both parked nose first in a tyre wall. A furious Grosjean stepped out and thumped the tyre wall in anger, while McLaughlin recovered to be classified 13th. What a damn shame it ended this way.

In his TV interview, Grosjean alluded to dark insinuations against McLaughlin, but this turned out to be the disappointment talking in the immediate aftermath. McLaughlin spoke of his intention to personally apologise to the Frenchman, and was later seen doing so. The only intention of both was to come out of Turn 4 with the lead, and it should be ruled a hot-blooded racing accident.

But this race had another twist before it was done. Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward inherited the lead and scorched away from the green flag restart, only to find Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson looming in the closing stages, the Swede having saved much more of his power boost to go on the attack. Still, it looked unlikely he’d find a way past – until three laps from home O’Ward’s Chevrolet engine stuttered out of the final turn. The Mexican later blamed a brief fire in the plenum, which was enough to allow 2022 Indy 500 winner Ericsson to dart around him and claim his fourth IndyCar victory. Breathless stuff – and what a kick in the you-know-whats for O’Ward and McLaren. In the wake of the team’s disastrous showing in Bahrain, an IndyCar victory would have offered a soothing balm. Instead, more chaffage!

The accidents had been unpleasant, but thankfully left no lasting damage. The first occurred seconds after the start as “an accordion affect”, as one driver put it, triggered a multi-car pile-up that forced a red flag stoppage. The most alarming aspect was how Devlin DeFrancesco’s Andretti entry, sitting at a standstill prone in the middle of the track, was T-boned by Benjamin Pedersen. The Andretti car was launched high and spun in the air before landing heavily. The first lucky escape of the day.

Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi 2023 St Petersburg IndyCars

Ericsson kept a cool head where others couldn’t

IndyCar

The second occurred when Rinus Veekay plunged into the Turn 4 tyre wall, was collected by a helpless Jack Harvey and then another Andretti car was sent airborne. This time it was Kyle Kirkwood, who cleared both crashed cars and landed on his Dallara’s nose. Somehow he then drove it back to the pits, as a groggy Harvey was attended to by the medics. Nasty stuff – but IndyCar’s wraparound ‘Aeroscreen’ cockpit windshield had done its job once again.

Last word to Michael Andretti. The loss of DeFrancesco and Kirkwood was followed by Herta finding the wall after contact with Penske’s champion Will Power – then Grosjean completed the set with his contretemps with McLaughlin. The wannabe F1 team chief was last seen stalking down the pitlane in obvious disgust. Poor chap. To suggest it just wasn’t his day is probably putting it mildly.

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