St. Petersburg GP IndyCar Circuit: Here's everything you need to know about the iconic street track

The 2025 IndyCar season is on the horizon with the first race being the Firestone St. Petersburg GP being held on March 2nd. The race takes place on a temporarily set-up circuit on the streets of St. Pete in Florida. Here's everything that you need to know about the St. Petersburg GP IndyCar Circuit.

The first American open-wheel racing series race at the Circuit was held in 2003 as part of the Champ Car championships. However, the street circuit debuted in the Indy Racing League (now IndyCar) in 2005. St. Petersburg GP was the first IndyCar race to be held on a street circuit.

The 2025 race will be the 20th anniversary of the iconic street race in the IndyCar series and to honor the winner of the debut race at St. Petersburg GP, Dan Wheldon, the former driver's family will be participating in the pre-race rituals at the track.

The race takes place around a 1.8-mile course set up around the street of St. Pete, adjacent to Tampa Bay. The race is 100 laps long and the circuit consists of 14 turns. Josef Newgarden holds the lap record around the circuit with a time of 1:00.6795s set during the 2024 race in the Team Penske car.

Let's have a look at the track map of the St. Petersburg GP circuit and understand the intricacies of the street course.

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Track Map of the Firestone St. Petersburg GP

The 14-turn course starts off at one of the two runways at the Albert Whitted Airport. The runway is utilized as the start and finish straight for the St. Petersburg GP. The pitlane is a temporarily built setup next to the runway which runs parallel to it and exits into Turn 2.

The first set of corners is built to merge with the exit road of the airport. The wide start-finish straight quickly narrows down into the tight and technical Turns 1, 2, and 3. The set of corners is a recipe for a crash of Lap 1 as cars going side by side are caught by the ever-closing wall. Lap 1 of the 2023 race saw an 8-car crash which led to a pile-up and a Red Flag.

The first set of corners merges into the 1st St SW as the cars run down the straight before the sharp and fast 90⁰ right-hand turn 4. Turns 5 and 6 are a combination of a long swooping left-hander that merges the track into the Beach St.

AUTO: MAR 05 INDYCAR Series Streets of St. Petersburg - Source: Getty

Turns 8 and 9 are slower speed 90⁰ right-hand corners along Central Avenue SE and Bay Shore Dr SE. Following Turn 9 is the long back straight which runs alongside Tampa Bay. An exceptional view of the Bay and the Yachts in it can be seen as cars run down this straight.

Turn 10 is a sharp left corner that follows the street around the Bay before a short run to the chicane of Turn 11 and 12 that leads to the right-hand hairpin of Turn 13. This merges into the runway at the Albert Whitted Airport to complete a lap around the 1.8-mile circuit.