WATCH: Pit stop trouble for Colton Herta causes him to slip positions at St. Petersburg

The 2025 Firestone Grand Prix is down to the last 10 ten laps, and Colton Herta's outing has gone from bad to worse. Despite starting the 100-lap race from second place during the rolling start, he now finds himself out of the top 10 because of a horrendous pit-stop.

On lap 36 of the event, Colton Herta was running in the top five, but as he came into the pits for a change of tires, the whole ordeal took a lot of time because of a slow pit stop.

The Andretti Global racing team had trouble getting the right rear tire on the 24-year-old's car. This led to time wastage and Herta slipping down the pecking order in the fiercely contested event.

In the 2024 edition of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Colton Herta managed a third-place finish. However, the way things are currently going for him, he could finish his 100-lap outing outside the top 10. This will be a major blow for him and his team in the season opener of 2025.

Colton Herta expected a 'wild' race in St. Petersburg

While Colton Herta did not have the kind of outing he was hoping for at the 2025 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, prior to the race, he was expecting a 'wild' 100-lap dash.

From the very start of the race, things got chaotic. There was a three-car crash on lap 1 that took a decent amount of time to take care of. After the trackside crew got rid of the debris, the race resumed, and for Herta, the whole outing turned out to be unpleasant.

The 24-year-old was expecting a chaotic race following yesterday's qualifying, and in line with this, he came up with a post via his X account. He wrote:

"P2 for Round 1, Gonna be a wild show tomorrow. Car is fast, ready for a fight!."

With the first round of the 2025 IndyCar season out of the way, only 16 Grand Prix are remaining on the calendar. Colton Herta finished the 2024 season in a commendable second place with 513 points, along with two wins, three poles, and 10 top-five finishes. He was also able to amass an impressive 13 top-ten finishes.

Taking all of this into consideration, the 2025 campaign has not gotten off to the best of starts for Herta. However, with 16 events still remaining, he has a decent chance of making up the lost ground to the early pacesetters. Last year's world champion, Alex Palou, triumphed in the 2025 St. Petersburg race and was followed by Scott Dixon (six-time world champion) and Josef Newgarden (two-time world champion) in second and third place.