No one needed the official Formula 1 approval of Cadillac F1 to join the series grid in 2026 to start speculating on who will drive for the organization.

One of those names in the discussion has been INDYCAR driver Colton Herta. He drives for Andretti Global, whose parent company TWG Global also owns the Formula 1 team that originally started as an Andretti effort.

Herta has reiterated over the first couple of months of 2025 that, even if Towriss wanted him in the F1 seat, he would have to think about the decision.

The 24-year-old Herta says he enjoys his INDYCAR team, the team he has driven for since 2020.

“It’s not an easy decision to just be like all right, see you guys forever,” Herta said on Feb. 28 prior to the season opener in St. Petersburg. “I’d be giving up an opportunity to maybe never work with these people again.”

It’s easy to be skeptical of Herta’s comments. Who wouldn’t give up a seat for Formula 1 if it were offered?

“He’s very focused on this year, as he should be,” Towriss said when asked by FOX Sports whether it really is a no-brainer of a decision for Herta if Towriss wants Herta in his F1 car. “And I think he’s smart to not let Formula 1 become a distraction.

“I think that would be a huge mistake for him, for us as a team, to do that. Does he have the talent drive there? Yes.”

Herta still needs to finish at least fourth in the INDYCAR championship standings to earn an F1 super license. He was second in the standings last year, the first time he finished among the top four.

“I’m happy for Colton to race where he wants to race — if it’s to the place where that [F1] option is on the table from that standpoint,” Towriss said. “His talent is tremendous. He’s a generational talent, and we just want to showcase it.

“He still hasn’t had the breakout year that I think he’s capable of. And so that’s what I want for this year. When that happens, there’s a lot to talk about then [about the future].”

The questions will dog Herta throughout this year. And while he’ll admit it’s not his favorite question, he knows that they will come.

And so, as Towriss noted, he’s not racing this year, thinking he has one foot out the door. Actually, he indicated that no decision is “automatic” and that he would have to consider what the opportunity would mean for years down the road.

“If I have [an F1 offer], I’d have to really have a serious thought,” Herta said.

How can it not be a distraction?

“I’ve had that carrot dangling in front of me for the past half-decade,” Herta told FOX Sports in January. “So it’s been a long time of it not happening. It’s just kind of a numb thing now. I don’t even think about it.”

But with the formal F1 approval issued to the Cadillac team last week and the F1 season beginning this weekend, the chatter will be constant.

“Basically, my goal is to win the championship and win the Indy 500,” Herta said. “Everything else should follow in suit if I decide to go that route [to F1].”

Coming off his best season in INDYCAR, Herta said with some minor changes, he should challenge for the title. The 2025 season didn’t start off great, as a slow pit stop relegated him to 16th at St. Pete in a race where he started second.

“We did have our best season to date, and we finished second [last year],” Herta said. “But it’s also a bad thing because finishing second in any sport is one of the worst things ever because you’re so close to winning it and you don’t get there.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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AVONDALE, Ariz. — Katherine Legge doesn’t view her racing as the first woman in the NASCAR Cup Series in more than seven years as something to take pride in doing.

“It’s disappointing that there aren’t more women [in] INDYCAR, NASCAR Cup, sports cars,” Legge said Friday, a day prior to her first time in a Cup car for practice at Phoenix Raceway.

It will be a somewhat historical moment as Legge, driving for Live Fast Motorsports, is the first female to drive NASCAR’s current Next Gen car and only the eighth woman to compete in Cup’s modern era.

“Everybody says, ‘What’s it like to be a girl in racing?’” Legge said. “And I don’t know, because I only have my own experience. I don’t know what it’s like to be a boy in racing.

“So I know what my journey has been, and I know that it’s gone for me and it’s gone against me, and I know where the struggles are. And I know mentally what you have to do to overcome those struggles.”

The 44-year-old Legge has an extensive racing resume that includes 47 starts in top open-wheel cars and nearly 100 starts (including four wins) in top road-racing series. She has competed in everything from electric cars in Formula E to midget cars at the Chili Bowl. Legge has made five career Xfinity starts and will make her Cup debut Sunday.

“I’ve driven so many different forms of racing,” Legge said. “I feel like this is the one that I really wanted to do that’s eluded me. I just love it. It’s in my blood.

“You know how they say that your job should not be your identity? Well, this 100 percent is my identity. I am just a racing driver.”

The Cup debut will cap a whirlwind two weeks for Legge, who met with NASCAR officials two weeks ago at Atlanta Motor Speedway to find out what she would need to get a license to race in Cup. She was approved for road courses and tracks one mile and shorter. While last week at Circuit of the Americas would have made more sense considering her road-course experience, she and the Live Fast team didn’t have time to get ready in a week.

So she’s had a little less than two weeks to prepare for the Cup debut. She has driven simulators at Richard Childress Racing (a static simulator) and Chevrolet (a motion simulator where the seat moves). She drove a car during Hendrick Motorsports pit stop practice this week just to get used to how a Cup car stops and launches.

“I feel like I’m either going to sink or swim, but everybody’s given me the best possible opportunity to go out there and do a good job,” Legge said. 

Legge hopes to compete in more Cup events, and she said she hasn’t ruled out INDYCAR starts.

“I would say I’m hopeful to do more INDYCAR races,” Legge said.

The Indianapolis 500?

“I would love to,” she said. “Let’s see.”

Legge said the scramble to get in a Cup race had nothing to do with Women’s History Month and all about racing at Phoenix, which the team felt would be a better track for her to debut at rather than the smaller Martinsville and Bristol tracks coming up in the next several weeks.

“[I was hoping to] fly under the radar for my first Cup race. Nobody’s going to notice, I’m just being in the back, we’ll chill, we’ll get NASCAR permission [to do more],” Legge said. “And then somebody was like, ‘You know it’s International Women’s Day.’

“Oh, s—. No way I’m flying under the radar [was my response]. So, no, I did not take that into consideration.”

When she’s done racing, Legge does want to have an influence on increasing the number of girls and women competing in motorsports. In recent years, NHRA drag racing has been the most prominent form of motorsports where women have had consistent success. She will be the first woman to compete in a Cup race since Danica Patrick in the 2018 Daytona 500.

“There’s been kind of a gap. There was Sarah Fisher and Danica [Patrick] and me and Simona [de Silvestro] and a bunch of good drivers in that era. And then there’s been like this gap and this lull,” Legge said about the women in the top racing series across various forms of motorsports.

“When I stop racing, … I’d love to bring up the next generation because I think that there’s only a handful of us that have those shared, lived experiences, and I think that my experience might be valuable in helping them navigate it.”

Her experience has allowed her to know that the questions about women in racing come with the territory.

“To me, it just is,” Legge said. “I would much rather people just saw me as another racecar driver on merit. But that’s not reality, and I’m not immune to or blind to the fact that it has helped me in ways, too. 

“So I’m just going to go out there and be Katherine and do the very best that I can.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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Josef Newgarden, in some ways, has served as the face of INDYCAR, and that’s thanks to his back-to-back Indianapolis 500 victories.

But he hasn’t been a factor for the championship in the last two seasons. He was pretty much out of contention with three races remaining in 2023. And after his disqualification from the opening race in 2024, he never reached higher than seventh in the standings.

He won titles in 2017 and 2019 and won 17 races from 2020-2024. But Newgarden still seeks that third title.

After racing to a third-place finish last Sunday in the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, he should feel like he has a good shot at the championship. He’s 15 points behind race winner (and three-time champion) Alex Palou after one race.

The Team Penske driver left St. Petersburg with a clean car and a good result. Not a bad Race 1 of 17.

“Every year I show up at St. Pete and it’s about putting up a solid result on the board,” Newgarden said. “I really mean that. … You have to get a result on the board to start the year and you’ve got to start thinking championship right away.”

Some fueling issues spoiled any chance of a win. But Newgarden refused to leave with his head down.

“Ultimately, we needed a good day just to get points on the board. That’s kind of going to be most important for this weekend, so we accomplished that,” Newgarden said. “I can’t be too dissatisfied.

“We had some miscues in the race for sure, just a couple fueling-wise. But the team still did a stellar job. It starts with the foundation of a fast car, and we certainly had that all weekend. … We can go on with that and feel confident at least to challenge for wins in the future.”

Last year, Newgarden left with the trophy from St. Pete, but then the disqualification ruling came several weeks later after it was eventually realized that he had access to his push-to-pass boost on restarts (when teams are not allowed to have it).

Despite the deep points hole, Newgarden said he didn’t give up his championship hopes until four races remained and he was still seventh in the standings — 151 points behind the leader in a series where 54 is the maximum a driver can earn in a race.

“You don’t really let go of the championship until it’s really mathematically over,” Newgarden said. “I probably held on to that until Portland, which is late. That’s very, very late, but you just don’t know what’s going to happen.

“You’re always hoping for a potential miracle. You want to create a miracle. So all through [last] season, I could feel the things slipping away. … I didn’t let go of it until it was mathematically done. And I think you’ve got to carry that attitude in this sport.”

Newgarden also carries the attitude he has every season as he tries to win his third career title.

“I wake up every day trying to figure out how to do better … how to be a warrior when I step into the car and deliver the best result for my team,” Newgarden said. “I want to do it as a team player, too. And I want to deliver it as a group effort.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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Fox Sports’ debut IndyCar race drew 1.417 million viewers and was the most watched series event aside from the Indianapolis 500 on any network since 2011.

The mark for Sunday’s opener on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg was a 45% increase over last year’s event, which drew 974,700 combined viewers on NBC.

The Fox Sports viewership peaked with 1,820,000 viewers from 2:15-2:26 p.m. Local market ratings will not be available until later this week.

IndyCar this season ended it’s 16-year relationship with NBC Sports for a multi-year deal with Fox Sports, which has promised high-quality production and promotion that began in January with glossy commercials featuring three of the series stars that aired during NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl.

IndyCar has a close relationship with Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks, an Indiana native with a passion for both the series and the Indianapolis 500. He has vowed to push IndyCar back to the top levels of motorsports.

Despite the heavy promotion — which was also done during NASCAR’s Daytona 500 and other Fox Sports programming — Shanks acknowledged to The Associated Press “there will still be people Googling on Sunday ‘What network is today’s IndyCar race on,'” — something he hopes to eliminate. All 17 races and both of the Indianapolis 500 qualifying sessions will be aired on Fox Sports this year, making IndyCar the only major motorsports series to air its entire schedule on network television.

The opener on Sunday, which was a 1-2 finish for Chip Ganassi Racing with Alex Palou and Scott Dixon, was even more impressive in that NBC Sports uses the TAD (total audience delivery) metric that includes live streaming. FOX does not use TAD because it is not recognized by Nielsen Media Research data.

The race netted an audience increase of 425,300 viewers over NBC Sports and Fox Sports said it ranks as the most-watched IndyCar race on network television in 14 years not including the Indy 500. That race, in 2011 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway where Dan Wheldon was killed in a fatal accident, drew 2,448,000 viewers on ABC.

Fox Sports also said Friday’s airing of the opening practice on its Fox Sports 1 cable channel drew 95,000 viewers.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — An INDYCAR season that will quite possibly be defined as a season in transition opened with a usual winner.

The Andretti team has a new owner who’s wondering if his manufacturer (Honda) will remain when INDYCAR goes to its new car. That change could possibly come in 2027 — or maybe in 2028. Will Power, ranked fourth all-time in career victories with 44, has hired an agent amid the uncertainty surrounding his return to Team Penske in 2026.

Michael Shank Racing began its new alliance with Chip Ganassi Racing, an alliance that possibly proved its worth early with both of its drivers starting in the second row for the opener at St. Petersburg. The opener also showed potential in other new relationships. Christian Lundgaard finished eighth in his first start with Arrow McLaren, Rinus VeeKay was ninth in his first drive with Dale Coyne Racing and Alexander Rossi placed 10th in his first voyage with Ed Carpenter Racing.

The series is now being run by someone different (Doug Boles instead of Jay Frye) and also has a new television partner with every race on FOX network television.

So even though two-time defending series champion Alex Palou snatched the victory, the St. Petersburg vibe centered on change rather than things remaining the same.

Is it coming just in time?

“This is a very important year,” new Andretti owner Dan Towriss said. “The series has gotten more expensive over the last few years, and I think a lot of team owners would say the revenue hasn’t kept up with the expense side of it.

“The on-track product is so good, and so being able to tell that story [is important].”

Towriss is in the middle of many of the storylines. He worries that Honda’s concern about costs in the series might drive the manufacturer out of the sport with the introduction of the new car, which then potentially could increase costs for owners if no new manufacturer is found to compete with Chevrolet. 

But Towriss also won’t hesitate to spend money. He wants the latest and greatest of the new car when it debuts in two or three years. Other team owners are concerned. One owner estimates that there could be a base cost of $800,000 for each entry to replace its fleet, and they wonder if certain elements of the current car can or should be utilized.

“I just want to know is it a press thing, is it a speed thing, is it a safety thing, is it a cost thing, … maybe it is a fan thing,” team owner Chip Ganassi said. “I’m not negative on it. I’m just saying we have to be very careful as to what we’re trying to accomplish here.”

That used to be Frye’s problem, but now it’s one for Boles as he tries to navigate the world of a variety of viewpoints in a sport where it is easy for owner dissatisfaction to impede progress (a challenge for all motorsports).

“I don’t think I’ve slept in the last 19 days, which is fantastic,” Boles quipped Saturday.

One driver who might lose some sleep in the coming days is Power, who had an awful weekend with a wreck on the opening lap.

The 44-year-old Power won three races last year, but talks haven’t started yet between him and Penske. Meanwhile, his teammate Scott McLaughlin signed a long-term deal in the offseason.

“If you win three races in a season, you definitely should be signed up in INDYCAR,” Power said. “As fast as I was last year, I’d say any other driver in the series would be signed now. … The pressure is the sort of thing I enjoy.

“We’ll know more as the season unfolds. We’ll see what is the most logical thing that will happen.” 

Power hired the driver representation agency owned by former F1 driver Fernando Alonso. Former driver Oriol Servia handles the U.S. business.

“I can just focus on racing,” Power said about hiring an agent. “Fernando has a lot of good contacts in Europe for WEC [World Endurance Championships] and he also has contacts in INDYCAR as well. … Mainly for me to 100 percent focus on my job and extract the most out of my performance.” 

Another driver who signed with an agency is Josef Newgarden. He’s in no danger of leaving Team Penske. And he signed with one of sports’ most prominent agencies — Chris Paul’s Klutch Sports Group — for commercial opportunities.

“It’s a good moment in time for them to get involved,” said Newgarden, who is Klutch’s first motorsports client. “I got introduced to them over the offseason. We put something together. … It seemed pretty obvious we should be doing something together.”

One driver expected to be in the mix for the title along with Newgarden and Power also has a bit of an uncertain future. Colton Herta continues to be the subject of speculation he could move to Formula 1 to drive for the new Cadillac team, owned by Towriss.

“I like working with a lot of the guys at Andretti,” Herta said. “It’s not an easy decision to just be like all right, see you guys forever. I’d be giving up an opportunity to maybe never work with these people again.”

Towriss likes to hear that. 

“The team’s had a great offseason, and he wants it bad,” Towriss said. “With the excitement and this just kind of being an inflection year for INDYCAR, it makes no sense for him to be thinking about Formula 1 — both in terms of the series but also what he needs to do.

“I love that answer. And I think he’s all in here.”

Formula 1 is the premier international motorsports series, and INDYCAR runs all of its races in the United States, except one in Canada. It will add another venue next year when it races around the Arlington (Texas) sports complex.

As far as any other new race venues, Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles said they are focused on North America.

“We’re working hard on Mexico, and I hope that happens and we can have something to say about that this year,” Miles said.

That would be music to the ears of Mexican driver Pato O’Ward, who drew the most fans of any driver at the track in St. Petersburg, a mix of his personality, Mexican fervor over its racing drivers and the McLaren brand.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown wasn’t in St. Petersburg, as he was in Bahrain for Formula 1 testing. His new team principal, Tony Kanaan (another fan favorite when he was driving), spent his first weekend in charge watching Lundgaard finish best for the team.

O’Ward, though, tried to look on the bright side of his 11th-place finish.

“Eleventh is the best we could have done today with what we’ve got thrown at us,” said O’Ward, who suffered a tire puncture on the opening lap.

He was talking about the racing, but he could have been talking about the 2025 INDYCAR season as a whole. There’s a lot being thrown at the teams and the administration and those in charge will likely have frustrations while doing their best.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Don’t engrave Alex Palou’s name on the 2025 INDYCAR championship trophy just yet. 

Yes, he led 26 laps on his way to the victory Sunday afternoon in the season-opening INDYCAR Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Yes, he crossed the finish line 2.8 seconds ahead of teammate Scott Dixon and 6.2 seconds ahead of Josef Newgarden.

And, yes, he already has three championship trophies, including the 2023 and 2024 rings.

“He makes it look easy, doesn’t he?” team owner Chip Ganassi said. “Makes it look easy. Doesn’t sweat.”

So in a world where overreacting to sports results is a favorite pastime, don’t be ready to anoint the Spaniard as the 2025 champion.

His competition certainly (and expectedly) isn’t.

“It’s Round 1,” said third-place finisher Josef Newgarden. “Let’s see how it goes.”

Newgarden felt he could have won but they had fueling issues.

“We just had fuel miscues two times,” said Newgarden, who was running out of fuel on the final lap.

Palou teammate Dixon knew what he needed to beat Palou on Sunday after Dixon could not hear his crew tell him when it wanted him to pit — and he pitted a lap later than the crew wanted.

“Get a radio that works,” the six-time series champion Dixon said on how to beat Palou. “That would be good.”

Palou knows it’s only Race 1 and everything went well for him Sunday. But that isn’t a coincidence. His previous road/street course results are second, fourth, second, first and fourth.

“We’ve 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 and to extract 100 percent,” Palou said.

“That being said, I don’t think that translates to other racetracks because in the past we’ve been struggling here but not at other places. I don’t think that what we learned here we can take to [the next street course at] Long Beach.”

And even though he felt better than in the past, Newgarden noted that he finished third even with the errors.

“To have miscues like that and to still finish third, I think is a great day in a lot of ways,” Newgarden said. “Really pleased to come out of here with points. Obviously there’s a lot more than could have been.”

While he said he was really pleased, Newgarden’s mannerisms showed he was bitterly disappointed. And Dixon didn’t mince words.

“I’m pretty pissed off,” Dixon said. “We had a good race going and we didn’t get it done. It doesn’t feel good.”

That’s typical racing. There is a winner and the rest of the field feel like losers, especially the ones who believe their lack of winning could have been prevented.

And that’s where the Palou team thrives. Sure everyone makes mistakes, but Ganassi noted that Palou’s timing stand where race decisions and strategy are made “has all-stars on it. In terms of strategy, calling the race, communication — there’s nobody better than the 10 car guys.”

Ganassi said his Dixon and Kyffin Simpson teams have work to do to catch up to Palou.

“I don’t know that one race winner makes you [the favorite],” Ganassi said. “We’re certainly the season favorite until next week or until the next race. What I’m most happy about is each offseason, every team does work on their cars.

“You don’t sit flatfooted all winter. You’re working on your cars trying to make them better. I think our cars are better than they were a year ago — at least here in St. Pete.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and IndyCar for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Scott Dixon couldn’t hear his crew during the INDYCAR season opener Sunday at St. Petersburg. 

In some racing series, that might be considered a safety issue. But for Dixon, he feels it cost him the race.

Just imagine a quarterback not knowing the play or the basketball player not hearing the defensive switch. That’s what the six-time INDYCAR champion dealt with on the 1.8-mile street course.

Dixon saw his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate and two-time defending series champion Alex Palou win the race, and Dixon — a six-time series champion — felt if he could hear his crew, he could have pitted a lap earlier, which potentially would have allowed him to challenge Palou.

“You know when the car is going to run out,” Dixon said. “I didn’t know if they could hear me, so I was just telling them I’m just go to run to the light and see what happens.

“Ultimately, I think for me, it was just one lap too long. I should have pitted maybe when I saw the 10 car [of Palou] coming in.”

His team owner agreed.

“If everything was 100 percent, he would have won,” Ganassi said. “It was simple. He would have won the race. The race was over. It was one stop to go, and we pitted a lap later than we wanted him to.

“That was the race. That was the difference between he and Palou.”

INDYCAR rules state “During all on-track events, radio communication between the driver and the entrant’s pit box is required at all times.” INDYCAR says that their audio track recorded two-way communications during the race so therefore Dixon was not forced to pit.

Ganassi said they could hear it go in and out throughout the race. Obviously it didn’t rise as an issue for INDYCAR (or they weren’t aware of the issue).

“It kind of worked on the warmup laps and kind of for the first 10 and that was about it,” Dixon said.

Communication is required on ovals but is not required on road and street courses in INDYCAR. Teams still use spotters, who buy tickets at some of the best locations on the course as far as being able to see as much of the track as possible.

Dixon didn’t seem concerned from a safety standpoint, just from an information standpoint.

“I think when I caught [Alexander] Rossi and maybe [Christian] Lundgaard, I kept trying to ask how many laps have they got to go before we can get some clean air and kind of push because it’s very tough to just get a pass going here,” Dixon said.

“None of that information [got to me]. I just had to kind of guesstimate that they were maybe five or six laps offset from us, which it seemed like the 20 [of Rossi] was, but the 7 [of Lundgaard] wasn’t. He went a couple laps more. It makes it difficult because especially with mileage, for us on the IMSA side or sports-car side, you kind of have a pretty good gauge for understanding where you need to be — but with this thing you have no idea.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and IndyCar for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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