Race promoters, along with hometown champion driver Sebastian Bourdais and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, all raised the Firestone Grand Prix flag Friday at City Hall.

"Obviously, we get to showcase this amazing city," Mayor Kriseman said. "Show off all the great features that exist in our city and let the world know why St. Pete is a place they should come and visit.”

What You Need To Know

  • Firestone Grand Prix events gets rolling over the next 3 days

  • Main event is on Sunday

  • In-person attendance is limited due to COVID

Kriseman said, even though the crowd size is limited to 20,000 because of the pandemic, he still expects the race to have a big economic impact. Especially, since it will be broadcast live on Sunday across the globe on NBC.

"We're in the multi-million dollars of economic impact that this race brings in," Kriseman said. "It's basically a three-and-a-half hour commercial for the city." 

Bourdais said he'll be glad to see fans from his IndyCar as he zips around the track.

"Racing in front of nobody, (there's) nothing more depressing," he said. "So, I was really super happy to see that."​

Many downtown businesses have also been gearing up for IndyCar fans to arrive. The general manager of Social Roost, Max Blower, said he expects to see some heavy traffic this weekend at the new restaurant.

"We have been getting calls from across the country. It's wild. Every reservation I take it's like, 'oh there's eight of us coming in from Chicago or from L.A.,'" he said. "One of the biggest goals for us anyway is to get more foot traffic on this block, on First Avenue, because a lot of people just don't know we're here yet because we're not on Beach Drive directly but we're just a block up."​

Social Roost is located one block from the track. 

IndyCar fans who want to attend the race should buy tickets soon. As Firestone Grand Prix promoter Kevin Savoree said, it's nearly sold out.

There will be a total of 11 races that take place over the next three days.