Alex Palou not confident of converting St. Pete success at other IndyCar street races in 2025

Alex Palou put on a driving masterclass at the first IndyCar race of 2025. The defending champion fought his way up the grid from P8 to emerge victorious for the first time at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. However, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver later admitted that this victory indicates nothing about how their pace will be in the remaining street races of 2025.

Palou has always struggled on the streets of St. Petersburg. Chip Ganassi Racing, which has been one of the best IndyCar teams of the 21st century, has only won the race twice since its inaugural round in 2003. Alex Palou's previous best result at the circuit was a P2 in 2022.

On Sunday, the Lap 1 crash involving Will Power helped Palou and other drivers on the alternate tires to switch to the primaries. This helped the Spaniard in the longer run as CGR timed his next two pitstops to perfection, giving him the race lead in lap 75, which he masterfully defended until the end.

When asked about his and the team's overall turnaround to ace the street challenge, he said:

"Feels better, feels much better than last time here. Honestly, I'm very, very confident on how the car felt here in St. Pete. As I said, we have always struggled here for some reason, and we got it now to feel like what I need and what we need as drivers to push in to extract a hundred percent."

However, Palou acknowledged that this necessarily doesn't mean that they have figured out the success mantra to win on all street circuits.

"That being said, I don't think that that translates to other racetracks because, in the past, we've been struggling here but not in other places. So yeah, I don't think that what we learned here, we can take it to Long Beach, for example," the 3-time champ added.

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Alex Palou was frustrated being stuck behind lapped driver Sting Ray Robb at St. Pete

Alex Palou's No. 10 CGR Honda at the INDYCAR Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg - Source: Getty

In the closing stages of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Alex Palou was stuck behind lapped driver Sting Ray Robb of Juncos Hollinger Racing. Robb, a Chevrolet-powered driver, wouldn't let the defending champ, a Honda-powered driver, pass. This helped Josef Newgarden in P2 to close the gap to Palou from 5 seconds down to less than half a second.

Eventually, Palou made it past Robb, and Newgarden, unfortunately, couldn't snatch the race lead. After the race, Palou expressed his frustration with the situation, likening it to a highway driver situation.

"Similar to when you’re on the highway and there’s somebody that is driving, like, 40 miles an hour in the left (lane) and wouldn’t move, and then you pass him and he’s like trying to go faster than before and he passes you again," he said via RACER. "It’s that kind of frustration, especially when he’s (Robb) able to use (push-to-pass boost), and you as the leader, you don’t want to burn 50 seconds of OT (Overtake button boost) to pass [a car you’re trying to lap], but he can do that to try and stay in front of you, especially if he’s from another engine manufacturer."

Though Alex Palou termed it a "shame", he acknowledged that it was within the rules and he had benefitted from it in the past. Teammate Scott Dixon eventually overtook Newgarden to secure a 1-2 for CGR.