By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
There was nothing subtle about the changes introduced by the IndyCar Series this year. Just about everything was knew, in fact; engines, cars, drivers, teams, rules, officials. All put into play with limited off-season testing time.
Last weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla., all of the new stuff hit the track, er, [...]

Helio Castroneves passed Scott Dixon for the race lead with 26 laps to go and went on to win the IndyCar Series’ season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday afternoon.
The victory was the 36-year-old Team Penske driver’s first since he won in Japan in 2010.
With the result, Castroneves, who had qualified fifth fastest, [...]

A 10-spot starting grid penalty typically would spell gloom-and-doom for a rookie driver on a street circuit. That dilemma apparently got lost in translation for Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, who anxiously is awaiting his IZOD IndyCar Series debut in Sunday’s season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St.
Petersburg.
Pagenaud blocked-out his looming penalty – the result of an unapproved [...]

Team Penske and Chevrolet-powered Dallara DW12s dominated qualifying for the season-opening IndyCar Series race on Saturday afternoon.
Penske’s Will Power won the pole and teammate Ryan Briscoe earned the right to start alongside for the start of Sunday’s Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Power set a circuit-qualifying record of 1 minute, 1.3721 seconds in winning the [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
The history of INDYCAR is the history of a quest; a quest for solid ground.
For the 2012 season, which begins this weekend with the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, INDYCAR is rolling out a large box of changes which the series and its supporters hope will mark a big [...]

By John Sturbin | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Marco Andretti turns 100 on Sunday, although he’s sounding more like a 25-year-old who’s finally comfortable in his own skin.
Andretti celebrated his 25th birthday on March 13 with “a lot of love and stuff like that from the people on my cell phone,” in-between testing for the IZOD IndyCar Series’ [...]

By John Sturbin | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
A new race car was no problem for Will Power on the Streets of St. Pete Friday.
Power, of Verizon Team Penske, picked up where he left off on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary circuit to pace the opening day of IZOD IndyCar Series practice for Sunday’s Honda Grand Prix of St. [...]

By John Sturbin | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Helio Castroneves says he has done the “simple math,” and his recent IZOD IndyCar Series numbers point to a popular driver nevertheless mired in a puzzling and prolonged slump.
The veteran in Team Penske’s three-driver lineup, Castroneves failed to win a race during 2011 –snapping a streak that had seen him [...]

Josef Newgarden’s march to the 2011 Firestone Indy Lights championship began on the Streets of St. Pete, where the 21-year-old returns this weekend with a “big car” and revised expectations.
Newgarden is scheduled to make his IZOD IndyCar Series debut with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing in the season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, lapping the [...]

Graham Rahal says the IZOD IndyCar Series’ Open Test at Sebring international Raceway has confirmed there are more sweet-than-weak spots in the revolutionary Dallara DW12 chassis.
“It’s a good chassis,” said Rahal, among series regulars who tested on the bumpy 1.67-mile, 11-turn circuit last week. “When the car first came out there was a lot of [...]