Season Opener

 

March 1, 2022

 

Season opener

The Indy Car season officially opened with the first race of the 2022 season at St. Petersburg. This year brought a lot of changes to the driver line-up with a slew of changes including a bunch of new rookies, some who moved up from Indy Lights. Drivers changing teams and sadly the loss of some long-time competitors, including my favorite driver James Hinchcliffe, who has stepped into a role of broadcaster for NBC.

The new line-ups and many changes are always an interesting factor at the first race of the season and it took a minute for me to get up to speed on identifying the new and changed drivers, and it was hard for example to see Romain Grosjean in the DHL yellow car that was so long occupied by Ryan Hunter-Reay, who is no longer driving Indy Cars.

The first qualifying session was a surprise as well as second year Penske driver Scott McLaughlin captured his first pole position of his Indy Car career. It is not a surprise that a Penske won the pole, but most certainly expected it to be Will Power (who qualified second) or Josef Newgarden. Power had won the pole at this event nine times previously and McLaughlin had shown flashes last year but, was inconsistent and had never started higher than fifth in Indy Cars.

The race itself was fairly exciting, especially the final ten laps or so, but McLaughlin backed up his pole by capturing his first Indy Car career win by holding off a charging defending series champion in the form of Alex Palou. Palou pressured McLaughlin mightily over the final portion of the race, but just could not get by. Will Power finished fourth followed by Colton Herta and Romain Grosjean came home fifth.

McLaughlin became the second consecutive driver to earn his first series victory in the season opener. The driver who pulled off that feat last year – Palou, at Barber Motorsports Park – stretched McLaughlin to his limit over the last 13 laps of the 100-lap race on the 14-turn, 1.8-mile temporary street circuit.

A fascinating duel between drivers on two-pit stop and three-stop strategies unfolded into a straight fight between McLaughlin and Palou – and their two-stop plans – after six-time series champion Scott Dixon made his third and final pit stop in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda on Lap 80, surrendering the lead to McLaughlin.

McLaughlin led 49 of 100 laps and collected his first victory in his 18^th Indy Car start and jump started his season.  I had a great time at the race, it was cool to see so many friends and I really enjoyed my new seating location outside of the first turn. I had been sitting in the same seats for years and this year wanted to switch to a different perspective, so I made the change.

The seats offer a much better view of the action heading into turn one, which is the best passing zone on the circuit and I was able to witness tons of passing, wheel banging and spin outs from this location. I will definitely be renewing them and may never return to my previous seats.