Street fight doesn’t begin to describe the Firestone Grand Prix in the streets of St. Petersburg today. For the AJ Foyt Racing team, the fight ended seconds after it started.
Scott Dixon triggered the first of several multi-car crashes when he and Felix Rosenqvist made contact on the first lap which pushed Rosenqvist into the wall in Turn 3. Rosenqvist slowed causing cars to jockey for position as they exited Turn 3. The accordion effect claimed Santino Ferrucci who struck Helio Castroneves from behind. The impact spun Castroneves and chaos ensued mid-pack resulting in five cars sustaining race-ending damage.
Ferrucci’s teammate Benjamin Pedersen was also involved as he hit Devlin DeFrancesco broadside sending the sophomore driver airborne. Rookie Stingray Robb tagged Simon Pagenaud ending his day but Robb was able to make repairs and continue. All drivers were released from the INDYCAR Medical Unit.
Pedersen waits on pit road prior to practice for Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg.
Pedersen, who was the only other driver in the melee on the harder compound tire, explained what happened from his perspective.
“Not the start to my first INDYCAR race that I was hoping for,” said the 23-year-old rookie who placed 27th. “Coming through turn one, everything was very textbook. We were looking pretty decent to be honest to make progress. Then coming through [Turn] three, I noticed there was a little bit of your typical race flow traffic. As soon as I came through three, which is a blind corner, there was just a pile up of cars. Cars were horizontal [across the track], I slammed on the brakes to do my best to not be involved and looked for a gap but there were just no gaps or holes to squeeze my car into.
“Unfortunately, I hit Devlin straight on at pretty high speed and it was definitely a big hit. Fortunately, I’m totally fine and he is too. Got my hands off the wheel. Devastated for the team. Feel like we didn’t really get a chance today. We got caught out and honestly the car felt really good in warm up. We were doing really well with fuel mileage. So I honestly think we had a very good potential today for the race. I can’t wait to get back to work with the whole team and go testing at Barber soon for another rookie test. We’ll have to wait a little bit but very, very enthusiastic to get back to work and go racing again.”
The fireworks continued as Will Power was assessed a penalty for avoidable contact which ended with outside pole sitter Colton Herta in the Turn 8 tire barrier midway through the race. On lap 72, pole winner Romain Grosjean and defending race winner Scott McLaughlin crashed into the Turn 4 tire barrier battling for the lead after the final round of pit stops.
Pato O’Ward took the lead on lap 74 only to lose it to with three laps to go when he slowed coming out onto the main straightaway. Marcus Ericsson zipped past and went on to win his fourth NTT INDYCAR Series race. His teammate Scott Dixon trailed O’Ward. Rounding out the top five were O’Ward’s new teammate Alexander Rossi and sophomore driver Callum Ilott.
The next race on the schedule is the PPG 375 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, April 2. It will be broadcast on NBC starting at 12 noon ET.