In his three previous appearances at the Firestone St. Petersburg Grand Prix, driver Nikita Johnson racked up impressive stats, winning the USF2000 in 2023 (becoming the youngest winner in Grand Prix history), and the USF Pro 2000 the following year.
In 2025, he raced in four open-wheel series across three continents, including Formula Regional Oceania, British GB3 and FIA Formula 3.
Nikita Andreas Johnson is 17 years old.
This weekend, he’ll be competing as part of the INDY NXT series, which in the world of motorsports is a key step on the ladder to the Indianapolis 500.
Johnson, who’ll be behind the wheel just about every weekend between now and October, always looks forward to the St. Petersburg race. Not just because it’s the first in the season, but because he and his family reside in Gulfport. He was born in St. Petersburg.
“As people can imagine, it’s my favorite racetrack on the calendar – and one of my favorite racetracks ever,” Johnson tells the Catalyst. “The track layout is amazing. It’s special to me because most of the time I don’t get to live at home. I’m always traveling with my dad, or sometimes by myself. The past few years I’ve been overseas, in a bunch of hotels or at friends’ houses.”
In 2025, reports Johnson’s father Obie, the young driver’s coach and manager, Nikita was out of town nearly 300 days.
“So to be home, to eat food at home, to sleep in my own bed makes it worthwhile. And it’s special because all my friends and family can come out there and actually watch me. Because it’s pretty rare that people I know get to come out to these races.”
Measuring 1.8 miles, St. Petersburg is a Temporary Street Course, with 14 turns by Albert Whitted Airport, Bayshore Drive and surrounding streets.
For INDY NXT drivers, Friday’s allotted times are for practice. Saturday is qualifying day, and the actual race is Sunday (see the full Grand Prix weekend schedule here).
“Most drivers have a simulator at home, or with the team, and we do a lot of work on it,” Johnson reports. “Unfortunately, we don’t really have St. Pete model there, because it changes every year, slightly, with the walls, so we have to use a Sim for other racetracks.
“Sometimes, on a regular road, bumps get worse over time. Some of the bumps continue to get worse with the traffic; it’s just a natural thing. And then the walls are moved in or out, depending on how they laid it, could be the same as last year, could be four or five inches difference. And when you’re talking that in racing, that’s quite a bit.”
The first order of business is walking the track. “You go to get a general idea of what’s changed. Even though it’s pretty minor, most of the time.”
By the time drivers arrive for the first practice, he adds, “you have to just go feel everything out. Because obviously nobody’s driven there in a year. There’s no practice in the off-season there.”
Auto racing requires both physical and mental preparation. And focus. “You have a checklist from your notes and onboards: ‘OK, I’m going to break at the 300 board; at Turn One, I’m gonna turn at the 100, gonna carry this amount of speed in there; I’m going to pick up throttle at this point in the curbing … you have four or five bullet points, for every single turn.
“And then you have a lot of reference points on the buildings, poles and stuff like that, and cracks in the road.
“So you go into first practice with all of this different data that you’ve collected in the past few years, and weeks of building up to the race. And you just have to execute it.”
His obsession with racing began with karts, at Anderson Sports Park (now T4 Kartplex) in Manatee County. “We went down there one day, I hopped in one,” Johnson recalls. “It was pretty fast for not having driven before. I liked the speed and I stuck with it.
“I tried a lot of other sports, but I guess you could say I didn’t get the thrill through it. I still have hobbies – other sports – to this day, but I knew from a young age I wanted to stay racing and make a career out of it.”
The family regularly took weekend trips to watch auto racing. “When I was a little kid, I went to Sebring, Daytona, St. Pete, and a few other races,” he says. “And at that point I was already racing in the junior categories of karting. I went to them as a spectator, and fell in love with it even more.” He was 13 when he competed in his first St. Petersburg Grand Prix.
Johnson graduated from online high school last May (his education has been both online and through homeschooling).
Friends, family and community remain top of mind, wherever he happens to be. He hosts the official Grand Prix kickoff party Wednesday, 5-11 p.m., at O’Maddy’s, 5405 Shore Blvd. South in Gulfport.
Greg Billings & the Stay Up Lates will be the band onstage, but Johnson fully expects to be called up to sing “Sweet Caroline.” It’s become something of a tradition.
Next, he’ll be at the INDYCAR Party in the Park, 4-7 p.m. Thursday in North Straub Park.
Friday brings Day One of the 22nd Annual Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Nikita Johnson’s hometown race.
“It keeps getting better every single year,” he enthuses. “It’s already awesome, and it’s becoming one of the best races in the U.S. Fans can watch anywhere on the track pretty much, up close.
“It’s a beautiful place. I don’t want to ever move. It’s my favorite place that I’ve been to in the whole world. I’ve been so many different places, and there’s just no place like home.”
Find all weekend tickets and information at this link.
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
