The second row for the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg featured champions from two different ladders.

On the outside sat Alex Palou, the four-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion and three-time defending title holder. Alongside him was Dennis Hauger (photo, top), the reigning INDY NXT by Firestone champion making his series debut.

Hauger, 22, didn’t expect to start that far forward.

“Honestly, in the beginning of qualifying, I was shooting for top 12,” Hauger said.

Instead, he advanced to the Firestone Fast Six in the No. 19 Ault Block Chain Honda for Dale Coyne Racing. Teammate Romain Grosjean also made the Fast Six, qualifying sixth in the No. 18 BMax Honda. It marked the first time since 2022 that Dale Coyne Racing placed two cars in the Firestone Fast Six.

Hauger converted his third-place start into a 10th-place finish. Grosjean finished eighth, giving the team its first double top-10 result since World Wide Technology Raceway in 2022 and its first on a road course since 2021 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

For Hauger, the weekend offered an intense lesson in INDYCAR SERIES racecraft. During his 2025 INDY NXT championship season, there were no pit stops and no alternate tire compounds. At St. Petersburg, managing the quicker but less durable Firestone Firehawk alternate tires was part of the equation.

The team elected to give Hauger experience on a fresh set of alternates in the Firestone Fast Six, while Grosjean saved a new set for the race and ran used tires in qualifying. The strategy paid off Sunday, as Grosjean finished two spots ahead.

“I think it was a good start,” Hauger said. “Just being confident on the in and out laps is a key point. That’s what made (Alex) Palou so quick this race. He really maximized that stuff.

“Also, the first lap -- not being too cautious, being more confident on cold tires and cold brakes and still pushing through a bit more -- that’s something I learned.”

Dennis Hauger Michael Cannon

Hauger (photo, above, left) said he improved at hitting fuel targets as the race unfolded and felt encouraged by his pace in the 100-lap race.

“I started P3 and finished 10th,” he said. “I want more. I always want more.”

Team owner Dale Coyne wasn’t surprised.

“This is what we’ve seen out of him in the preseason,” Coyne said. “We knew he’d be good, but you never really know until you put them in the deep end. He did a great job.”

Hauger’s résumé suggests the speed is sustainable. He won the 2021 FIA Formula 3 championship and the 2019 Italian Formula 4 title before spending three seasons in FIA Formula 2. He moved to INDY NXT in 2025 and won six races with 11 podium finishes in 14 starts, claiming the championship despite racing on all-new circuits.

There was a touch of irony sitting next to Palou on the starting grid. Palou also began his INDYCAR SERIES career with Dale Coyne Racing in 2020, showing glimpses of promise before finishing 16th in points. He moved to Chip Ganassi Racing the following season and has since won 20 races and four championships in five years.

Can Hauger follow a similar trajectory?

“For sure, it’s a confidence boost for me and the team to start off like that,” Hauger said. “But there’s going to be good weekends and bad weekends. The goal is to keep the consistency going.

“Where we finished, we don’t want to be worse than that. We want to keep improving.”

Next up is Saturday’s Good Ranchers 250 (3 p.m. ET, FOX, FOX One, FOX Sports app and INDYCAR Radio, powered by OnlyBulls) at Phoenix Raceway. The 1-mile oval returns to the schedule for the first time since 2018.

Hauger has never raced at Phoenix but participated in the Open Test on Feb. 17-18. He was 22nd fastest among 25 drivers with a top speed of 170.095 mph, completing 173 laps.

“The laps are the most important thing,” he said.

Ovals remain a priority. Last season marked his first experience on that discipline. While he didn’t win on an oval in INDY NXT, he finished second at Iowa Speedway and Milwaukee Mile, third at Nashville Superspeedway and fifth at World Wide Technology Raceway.

“There’s some important things when you go to American racing, and that’s the ovals,” Hauger said. “That’s the big thing here. I want to be good on those.

“My last year was the first time racing on ovals, and hopefully I can just keep progressing.”

The relative lack of recent experience at Phoenix could help level the field. Only five of the 25 drivers have raced there in INDYCAR SERIES competition, most notably Scott Dixon, who has six starts (2003-05, 2016-18). Josef Newgarden, Will Power, Graham Rahal and Alexander Rossi have made three starts each.

“It’s not new for everyone,” Hauger said. “I think Dixon was driving around here before I was born (Hauger was born in 2003). But for the majority of the grid, it’s new.

“I think we can do something good there. Our race pace seemed pretty decent in testing.

“It's something I'm just really open-minded with. I know there's a lot of new stuff again this weekend, but for me, again, it's just about trying to maximize what I have at the time and at that point, that's all I can do.”