IndyCar driver Colton Herta celebrates after winning the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Sunday, April 25, 2021 in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Colton Herta went a solid eight years ignoring any advice about racing cars that came from his father, an actual professional driver.

Sunday on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg, in their very first race working together, Herta was listening. He followed the sound of his father’s voice all the way to victory and alongside him on IndyCar’s win list.

Herta raced to his fourth IndyCar victory to match the same total his father, Bryan, achieved over his own 12-year career. The son needed just 34 races for his four wins and he begins his third full IndyCar season as a strong title contender.

“Growing up I had a lot of arrogance and I didn’t want to hear anything that my dad had to say,” Herta said. “And then I realized — bigger, faster cars — I learned more about the sport and I was like ‘Hey, he actually knows what he’s talking about.'”

Herta started from the pole and led a race-record 97 of the 100 laps to win his first race with Bryan Herta as his race strategist. Andretti Autosport paired the Hertas for the first time this year, dismissing previous father-son combinations that simply didn’t work in IndyCar.

This one would work, Michael Andretti insisted, because Colton Herta is so calm and so collected, and Bryan Herta had been a master on the radio previously for both Alexander Rossi and Marco Andretti. So when two cautions created two late restarts for Colton Herta to hold off Josef Newgarden, Bryan Herta was asked if father or son was more nervous about the fate of the race.

“Neither of us,” Bryan Herta said.

Father knew best.

“We’re just doing our thing. When you’re in the moment and in the zone, I feel really comfortable,” Bryan Herta said. “That’s what I want to be doing. I know he’s the same. I can hear it in his voice. That’s maybe the advantage of being on the radio, that we know each other so well, that there’s just a lot of unspoken communication. I can tell where he was at, I can tell just by his voice that he felt in control. He felt he had what he needed. So I just trying to let him do his thing, and he did it.”

The win was the first on a street course for the son, who asked his father for permission to do celebratory burnouts. It was granted, but his dad also reminded his son over the radio “wave to your fans” on the victory lap.

He was exhausted following the drive on a humid day on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary course along the Tampa Bay. Both hands were blistered and he said after climbing from the car that he was winded several times.

Newgarden finished second and was denied a third consecutive victory at St. Petersburg. He was followed by Team Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud.

The victory is a spark for Andretti Autosport, which struggled through 2020 and didn’t score its only win of the season — by Herta — until the 11th event. But Michael Andretti says the team is improved and both Herta and Rossi are title contenders, though it is Herta who has taken the lead.

Rossi finished 21st and was involved in a mid-race incident with Graham Rahal in which the two drivers slammed into one another battling for position. Alex Palou, winner of last week’s opener, finished 17th.

Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson finished 22nd out of 24 cars in his second IndyCar race. He brought out two cautions.