Following the unexpected addition of a late August street race in Washington, D.C., the NTT IndyCar Series is set for its first 18-race season since 2014.
It shouldn't be too hard to excuse a lackluster result in this weekend's season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Florida with the common "it's a long season" cliche we so often hear when things don't start off the way drivers would like.
The problem is that, historically, contenders don't open seasons with poor results.
Over the past 26 seasons (excluding Champ Car), there has only been one occasion in which the eventual IndyCar champion finished the season opener outside of the top eight, and that happened in 2015.
IndyCar season opener is historically crucial in championship fight
Scott Dixon, already a three-time champion at the time, finished 15th on the streets of St. Petersburg that year, and he didn't lead the standings all year until tying Juan Pablo Montoya in the double points-paying season finale at Sonoma Raceway, which Dixon won.
Dixon won his fourth title over Montoya due to the fact that he owned three wins that year to Montoya's two. One of Montoya's two came in the opener, and the other came in the double points-paying Indy 500.
From 2000 to 2025, the season opener was won by the eventual series champion on 11 occasions, most recently by Alex Palou a year ago in a season that saw him lead the championship wire-to-wire and win the Indy 500, something that hadn't been achieved since Johnny Rutherford pulled it off in the 1980 CART PPG Indy Car World Series season.
Excluding those 11 wins and Dixon's 15th place finish in 2015, the average finish of the other eventual series champions in season openers during this 26-year stretch is 5.0, featuring two runner-up finishes, three other podium finishes, and three other top five finishes. The "lowlight" eighth place finishes belong to Palou (2023), Josef Newgarden (2017), and Tony Kanaan (2004).
Even including Dixon's 15th place finish, that's a 3.69 average finish in the season opener for eventual champions since 2000, and that incredible record crucially includes zero DNFs.
Of course, anything is possible, and we have certainly seen drivers score poor results in the season opener and still go on to make championship challenges in the past. We've also seen only three drivers lead the standings for the entire season during that 26-year stretch; aside from Palou in 2025, Dixon did it in 2020, and Sam Hornish Jr. did it in 2001.
But history suggest that whatever "overreaction" you might have to a driver's poor result in this weekend's 100-lap race around the 14-turn, 1.8-mile (2.897-kilometer) temporary street circuit might not be an overreaction after all.
Is history going to change?
Fox is set to provide live coverage of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg from the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, March 1. Start a free trial of FuboTV and catch all of the action from the 18-race 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season from now through September!