By Lenny Sundahl
In a wild opener to the 2023 Indycar season, Marcus Ericsson kept out of trouble and took the checkers at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday. Pato O’Ward led in the closing stretch, but a momentary engine glitch allowed Ericsson to take the lead with three laps to go and claim his first win since last year’s Indianapolis 500.
Despite an early touch of contact, Scott Dixon hung in for third place, with quiet races from Alexander Rossi—in his Arrow McLaren debut—and Callum Ilott being rewarded with fourth and fifth place finishes.
It was largely a race of attrition, with five yellow flags—including one red—and two spectacular airborne crashes, including one that resulted in Jack Harvey being sent to hospital for evaluation. All four of Andretti Autosport’s drivers were involved in separate incidents, including polesitter Romain Grosjean colliding with Scott McLaughlin in a battle for the lead.
photo: Penske Entertainment/James Black
After the green flag, the race almost immediately descended into chaos. Contact between Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist sent Rosenqvist toward the wall between turns 2 and 3; as he limped down the straight, the field checked up, but Santino Ferrucci tagged Helio Castroneves, setting off a chain reaction wreck that also collected Simon Pagenaud, Sting Ray Robb, and Devlin DeFrancesco, who was then hit and launched airborne by Benjamin Pedersen. The red flag was thrown to clear the mess, and after nearly a half-hour the race resumed—with roughly a fifth of the field eliminated—and the green flag flew again on lap 6.
When racing restarted, the contact restarted as well, as David Malukas and Marcus Armstrong came together, but with much less chaos as the rest of the field avoided Armstrong’s wounded car. Beyond that, the race began to settle into a rhythm as the Andretti pair of Grosjean and Herta pulled out a nearly three-second lead on the rest of the field by lap 10.
While Grosjean maintained a lead over the group, Herta, who had stuck close to Grosjean in the opening laps before easing back, lost his option tires and the trailing group of Pato O’Ward, Marcus Ericsson, and Alex Palou all caught and passed him between laps 25 and 26, before he finally hit the pits on lap 28. Teammate Kyle Kirkwood, who was hanging with the main group, also slid backwards quickly and pitted the following lap after falling from 6th to 14th.
The group that started on standard tires—Scott McLaughlin, Scott Dixon, Will Power, and Alexander Rossi—began catching just as the rest of the field cycled through, and when Grosjean pitted after 32 laps McLaughlin inherited the lead. He pitted three laps later, and came out just ahead of Grosjean as the other cars on old black tires came in. Rossi pitted and re-entered between Herta and Palou, while Power came in ahead of Herta after his stop. Dixon took the lead after McLaughlin pitted, but came in on lap 37 just before Conor Daly was spun out by Kyle Kirkwood to bring out a yellow flag.
photo: Penske Entertainment/Chris Owens
With the field cycled through, McLaughlin led Grosjean and O’Ward as the field went back to green on lap 42, but the green was short-lived after another dramatic crash as Rinus Veekay, running wide to avoid contact with Josef Newgarden, made contact with the tire barrier instead, and collected Jack Harvey and Kirkwood, who became the second Andretti car to jump over another car this race, but managed to be the only one of the three cars in the incident to continue running, as Harvey would be taken to a local hospital for further observation.
Racing resumed on lap 50, and, after Graham Rahal narrowly missed hitting the tires at turn 3, Herta and Power went wheel to wheel at turn 5, with Herta getting knocked into the tires and out to bring out another yellow. Power was sent to the back of the field for his efforts as the green came out for lap 55. McLaughlin and Grosjean pulled away from the pack, with the polesitter chasing on the stronger standard tires to McLaughlin’s option tire and the leaders opening about a two-second gap on the field.
As the final pit stops came, McLaughlin and Grosjean waited until nearly everyone else came in to make their final stops. Grosjean came in first, at lap 71; McLaughlin came in the following lap, and came back out right ahead of Grosjean’s front wing. The effective fight for the lead between the two lasted one more corner, as McLaughlin and Grosjean collided and each hit the tires at turn 3, bringing out another yellow flag.
photo: Penske Entertainment/Joe Skibinski
With the final pitstops, O’Ward led Ericsson, Dixon, Palou, and Newgarden, who had fought his way from the back after an early stop for a puncture. As the green flew on lap 78, Palou and Newgarden went wide coming onto the runway, and O’Ward quickly separated himself from the field coming off of the main straight. Ericsson, on slightly fresher tires and with more push-to-pass boost, slowly started to reel in O’Ward, and with three laps to go O’Ward’s motor hesitated—a brief plenum fire—just enough for Ericsson to take the lead and keep it to the finish.
