IndyCar hopes competitive on-track racing captures audience as F1 season looks to be another snoozer

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — IndyCar finally snapped six months of dormancy with a Felix Rosenqvist-led spirited Friday practice session that Formula 1 wishes it could reproduce.

As the IndyCar season sets to begin Sunday on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg, the series has a very real opportunity to capitalize on the lack of competition and dysfunction in F1.

Max Verstappen has won eight consecutive races dating to last season, and Red Bull won all but one race all year. Verstappen's dominance continued Friday with a pole-winning run in Saudi Arabia, and he won the season-opener last week in Bahrain by more than 22 seconds. Most teams have already conceded he will win a fourth consecutive championship even though there's been only one race this year.

That lack of excitement has forced all the attention on the off-track dramas of the cutthroat racing series, and F1 has been engrossed in scandal for weeks as Red Bull has dealt with an internal investigation into team principal Christian Horner over accusations of improper conduct toward an employee. Horner was cleared, the employee this week was suspended, but the swirling gossip is nonstop.