The great aspects of the 20th edition of the Grand Prix of St Petersburg, the inaugural round of the 2023 IndyCar season, include the fact that we had a less-than-obvious winner, there were as many questions raised as answered, the field looks tighter than ever in the front half, there were some brilliant comebacks from lowly grid positions, and there were a couple of stirring underdog tales.
The downsides? Well, a couple of great performances were hampered through no fault of the drivers themselves, 26 of 100 laps were run under yellow, a shunt on the opening lap took five drivers out of contention and caused a red flag, and there was a lot of expensive damage incurred.
For fans of Romain Grosjean, it was a heartbreaking event, yet also a source of encouragement. The Swiss-born ex-Formula 1 star looked the class of the field in both qualifying and the race. He could have been beaten to pole by a couple of hundredths if Andretti Autosport teammate Colton Herta had reproduced his Q2 time in the Fast Six shootout, but the young American’s sloppy final flier meant Grosjean topped it by well over four tenths.
