IndyCar St. Petersburg 2025 Practice & Qualification: Where to Watch, Time, TV Schedule, and Everything You Need to Know

The 2025 IndyCar season is on the horizon, with the first race being the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, held on March 2nd in St. Petersburg, Florida. The drivers and the teams will be returning to the tarmac after the month-long off-season.

The race is held at the temporarily set-up 1.8-mile, 14-turn circuit on the streets of St. Petersburg and is 100 laps long. It was the first-ever IndyCar race that took place on a street circuit. The track debuted in Champ Car in 2003 and became part of the IndyCar series in 2005.

It will be celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the IndyCar series at the 2025 race, where the debut winner at St. Pete, Dan Wheldon's family, will be honored. Wheldon passed away in 2011 during a race in Las Vegas.

The track utilizes one of the runways at the Albert Whitted Airport as the start and finish straight. The track gets exponentially narrow in the first set of corners and takes to Central Avenue before following the shore next to the Tampa Bay, making its way back to the airport.

Helio Castroneves is the most successful driver around the circuit with 3 wins, whereas Team Penske is the most successful team with 11 wins. Josef Newgarden held the laps record around the circuit with a laptime of 1:00.6795 set last year. Pato O'Ward won last year's race and returns with Arrow McLaren as the defending race winner.

Let's have a look at the Practice and Qualifying session timing for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

When & Where to watch the 2025 IndyCar Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Practice and Qualifying

The race weekend begins on Friday, February 28, with the first practice session. Saturday, March 1st will see the second practice session in the morning followed by the all-important qualifying session in the afternoon to set the grid for the race on Sunday, March 2nd.

Friday, February 28: Practice 1

3:00 PM - 4:30 PM ET

Saturday, March 01 Practice 2

10:00 AM - 11:30 AM ET

Saturday, March 01 Qualifications

2:30 PM - 4:00 PM ET

All the sessions from the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will be streamed across the globe. Fans can avail the IndyCar Live membership anywhere in the world to livestream all 17 races. In the USA, FOX, who took over the exclusive broadcasting rights for IndyCar from NBC, will broadcast the race. The list for the broadcast in other countries is mentioned below:

United States of America

FOX

United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland:

Sky Sports

Mexico:

ESPN

Canada:

TNS & TNS+

Brazil:

TV Cultura

Australia:

Stan Sports

Germany:

Sky Sports

Netherlands:

Ziggo Sports

Italy:

Sky Italia

Sub Saharan Africa:

ESPN & Canal+

Japan:

Gaora Sports

There is little to no chance of precipitation during the race weekend, as per the weather forecast. Sunny, clear skies with temperatures varying between 60 degrees F to 70 degrees F during the sessions are expected.