New season, new opportunities: the 2022 NTT INDYCAR SERIES begins this weekend amid great excitement at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Felix Rosenqvist enters the new campaign determined to return to winning ways in America’s top-tier single-seater series, and ready to explore the limits once again around Florida’s highly popular and equally demanding street track.
Rosenqvist stands on the cusp of his fourth NTT INDYCAR SERIES season, and his second with Arrow McLaren SP. The 30-year-old Swede won a race in 2020 before enduring a difficult 2021 campaign, but is booming with fresh optimism as racing returns – with some key changes made over the winter.
Notably, Rosenqvist is taking on the new season with a new race engineer in the form of Craig Hampson, an experienced member of the Arrow McLaren SP team who previously acted as Rosenqvist’s strategist.
“There’s been a lot going on over the winter and we’ve worked hard to raise our game for this year,” says Felix Rosenqvist. “The team has really made a great effort. I enjoy working with Craig and it feels like we’ve found some interesting things that we are keen to try out. I’m as excited as ever and can’t wait for this new season to start!”
With very limited pre-season testing, however, Rosenqvist and the rest of the INDYCAR fraternity are heading largely into the unknown. Since the last round of 2021 at Long Beach, Rosenqvist (like most of his peers) has spent just a single day of testing, making any predictions for this weekend’s season-opener notoriously fickle.
“We’ve only had a single day of running, down at Sebring last week, and that’s basically it for pre-season testing,” Felix Rosenqvist continues. “There is a lot to squeeze into a day like that, and then you never know what your rivals are working on. I don’t think anyone truly knows where they stand.
“Having said that, we have spent a lot of time on simulations off the track, and we’re confident that we’ve made good progress. It is only this weekend that we will finally find out for sure, however. It really is wide open; there are 15-16 guys that could potentially win this race. That’s the beauty of INDYCAR.”
The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg marks the first of 17 races on the 2022 NTT INDYCAR SERIES calendar. Practice begins on Friday, with qualifying slated for Saturday.
Racing will get underway in downtown St. Petersburg at 12:30 pm (local time) on Sunday, spanning 100 laps. Felix Rosenqvist’s best finish at the Florida event is fourth, scored on a headline-grabbing INDYCAR debut in 2019.
TIME TABLE
NTT INDYCAR SERIES | Rd. 1
Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg (USA)
All times local (U.S. Eastern)
Friday 25 February
Free Practice 1: 3:40-4:25 pm
Saturday 26 February
Free Practice 2: 09:00-09:45 am
Qualifying: 12:30-1:45 pm
Sunday 27 February
Warm-up: 8:45-9:15 am
Race (100 laps): 12:30 pm
TIMING: INDYCAR App / racecontrol.indycar.com
ENTRY LIST: view here
TRACK DATA: view here