Alex Palou has done it all and continues to write history, as the Spaniard recorded his second straight win last weekend at St. Petersburg, becoming the first driver to open the season with back-to-back wins since Sebastien Bourdais in 2017 and 2018.

Scott McLaughlin led the first half of the race and showed strong pace in the early going. However, once pit stops began and the field shuffled, Palou once again found himself in the lead, just like we saw many times in 2025.

Palou dominated the last half of the race, pulling away to a 13-second margin of victory to score the win.

For the defending series champion, Palou is off on the right track as he heads into Race No. 2 at Phoenix today.

“Incredible. I mean, I don’t know what to say from this team anymore. It’s been a long offseason. I was sad last year that the season ended. I just wanted to continue going because I knew it was so magical and so tough to get such a great car, such a great team behind me. Yeah, this team has done it again here this weekend. It’s very early on, but still, I think that shows all the preparation they did, and I had by far the best car today.”

As for others in the race, the weekend didn’t end quite as kindly.

One in particular was former F1 driver Mick Schumacher.

Schumacher, who recently rejoined the open-wheel ranks after a stint with Alpine, got caught up in a Lap 1 incident that unfortunately ended his day.

While Phoenix has started off rather pleasantly, St. Pete was not what Schumacher was hoping for in his IndyCar debut.

“I saw Santino lock up, and I wasn’t aware that there was another guy on the inside locking up a little deeper than what’s supposed to be, and that kind of chain-reactioned the whole scenario,” Schumacher said. “Unfortunately, our real target was to finish the race and get all the laps that we wanted.”