The IndyCar season has finally started at St. Petersburg as Dennis Hauger wins the NXT series and Alex Palou wins the NTT series.
Some of the NXT drivers to look out for this season are rookie drivers No. 28 Dennis Hauger of Andretti Global, No. 38 Hailie Deegan of HMD Motorsports, No. 24 Sophia Floersch of HMD Motorsports and No. 26 Lochie Hughes of Andretti Global.
Deegan came to Indy NXT from the NASCAR Xfinity Series while Floersch and Hauger came over from the Formula Series, Floersch from Formula Three and Hauger from Formula Two.
The NXT race was at St. Petersburg this time, with the drivers driving 44 laps around the 1.8-mile road circuit.
Hauger was the NXT driver of the weekend as he finished in first place in all but one session this weekend where he finished second.
Hauger secured pole position by over three-tenths of a second with a lap time just under a minute and four seconds and continued to dominate the race, leading all 44 laps and winning by 1.2 seconds over Hughes.
Although this was not Hauger’s first time in an open wheel car, it was his first time in the Indy NXT cars. Hauger is known for his time in the FIA Formula series where he won Formula Three and was a multiple time race winner in Formula Two.
Deegan also did well after a nightmare start to her NXT Debut earlier this week. Deegan qualified in 21st but made her way up to 14th place for a gain of seven places during the race.
The other two drivers previously mentioned finished with Hughes in second place and Floersch in 12th.
The driver who lost the most places was Liam Sceats, who qualified fifth but fell to 18th for a total of 13 places lost.
Now onto the IndyCar NTT race where No. 3 Scott Mclaughlin qualified on pole position followed by No. 26 Colton Herta, No. 60 Felix Rosenqvist, No. 66 Marcus Armstrong and No. 7 Christian Lundgaard.
The drivers to look out for this season are second place finisher in 2024, Herta, third place finisher in 2023 and 2024, Mclaughlin, 6-time champion No. 9 Scott Dixon, two-time champion No. 12 Will Power, two-time champion No. 2 Joseph Newgarden and three-time champion No. 10 Álex Palou.
On the first lap, the caution flag came out as No. 6 Nolan Siegel, No. 45 Louis Foster and Powers collided, sending all three out of the race.
Through 50 laps, there had been no other cautions or crashes as Lundgaard led with No. 20 Alexander Rossi, Dixon, Newgarden and Palou all within six seconds of Lundgaard.
The race came down to the wire in the final laps, with the gap between first place Palou and second place Newgarden less than one second for the final 11 laps.
On the final lap, Palou crosses the line first, taking home his first win of the season with six-time champion Dixon finishing second by passing Newgarden who placed third on the second to last corner. Some other drivers mentioned were Power who did not finish the race and Herta who finished 16th.
The next race for Indy NXT is on Sunday, May 4 at 11:30 a.m. while the next Indy NTT race is on Sunday, March 23 at 3 p.m.