By David Morgan, Associate Editor
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season is officially underway.
Friday’s opening practice session for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg marked the first laps turned in anger this year, with Felix Rosenqvist striking the first blow of the weekend with a lap of one minute, 0.339 seconds.
Rosenqvist enters 2024 with a new team, having moved over to Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 60 Honda entry after spending the past three seasons with Arrow McLaren.
“Really smooth start for us,” Rosenqvist said. “I would say I haven’t had a bunch of running this winter, so I think we’ve been feeling confident coming here, but also unsure how we’re going to stack up when everyone is out there pushing.
“So, yeah, a little bit relieved actually and a little bit surprised as well. I thought we were going to be good, but not as quick straight away, but obviously I think it’s still early days, and everyone is going to improve a lot. We’re going to try to see if we can keep that gap ahead. Yeah, so far so good. Really happy.”
His former teammate at Arrow McLaren, Pato O’Ward, who came agonizingly close to winning this race one year ago slotted into second place, followed by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong, Will Power from Team Penske, and Ed Carpenter Racing returnee Rinus VeeKay to round out the top-five fastest cars.
“Felix is on another planet out there, but everyone else is extremely close,” Power quipped about the hot start for Rosenqvist on Friday.
2022 St. Petersburg winner Scott McLaughlin was sixth-fastest, with Romain Grosjean giving his Juncos Hollinger Chevrolet a good run in seventh in his first race with that team. Colton Herta would finish practice in eighth, along with defending series champion Alex Palou in ninth and Callum Ilott in 10th in his relief drive for Arrow McLaren.
The opening practice featured a new format on a trial basis that broke the session up into different segments in an effort to alleviate traffic issues that have become more prevalent in recent years on the tight confines of the street course.
All 27 cars ran the first 20 minutes, which Rosenqvist paced, followed by the field being split in half according to odd and even pit box numbers. For the remainder of the session, the two groups alternated in 10-minute increments as they worked to dial in their setups.
While the verdict is still on future use of the…
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