The first start was waved off as the pack wasn’t packed enough in the opinion of race director Kyle Novak. At the green, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay made no errors and led into Turn 1 ahead of the Arrow McLaren SP-Chevy of Pato O’Ward. Penske-Chevrolet’s Scott McLaughlin got the drop on Chip Ganassi Racing’s champion Alex Palou to claim third, then fended him off into Turn 5. Behind Palou, Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi and the second AMSP car of Felix Rosenqvist ran fifth and sixth, while Romain Grosjean (Andretti) was up to seventh, trailed by Callum Ilott in the Juncos Hollinger Racing-Chevy.
Ilott was chased by Graham Rahal, while Penske’s three-time Barber winner Josef Newgarden fell from seventh to 10th, his gamble of starting on Firestone’s harder primary tire not paying off at this stage. Behind him was Colton Herta, also on the black primaries.
Ericsson, running 13th, was the first to pit and commit to a three-stop strategy, switching from alternates to primaries. A lap later, Newgarden, Jack Harvey and Helio Castroneves followed suit, and a lap after that, Herta copied Newgarden, switching from primaries to alternates. He emerged behind Penske’s championship leader. Teammate Romain Grosjean stopped on Lap 13, going from reds to blacks, an as he emerged Newgarden was in his draft and passed him into Turn 5.
Herta tried to do the same along the front straight but when Grosjean blocked the inside line, Herta stood firm, slipped past but slipped off into the Turn 1 run-off. Herta charged once more and made an immensely brave pass down the inside into Turn 11.
Up front on Lap 20 of the 90-lap race, VeeKay held a two second lead over O’Ward, who had a similar margin over McLaughlin. Around 1.5sec further back, Palou was having to watch his mirrors for Rossi and Rosenqvist.
Will Power, the Penske driver who started 19th, was now the highest-placed driver on primaries in 13th, and very clearly one of the two-stoppers, but he ran almost four seconds behind Devlin DeFrancesco, apparently trying to save a lot of fuel.
Rosenqvist was the highest-placed two-stopper to pit, ducking out of sixth place on Lap 29 to grab a set of primary tires, and his teammate, running just two seconds off the lead, pitted next time by along with Rossi and Ilott. Rossi remained ahead of Rosenqvist. VeeKay, McLauglin and Palou stopped on Lap 30.
Thus the fastest three-stoppers were into the lead, Newgarden battling hard with Herta. However, their chances of winning were effectively ruined when the first caution flew. Ilott had been battling Meyer Shank Racing’s Helio Castroneves when he outbraked himself at Turn 8 and spun into the gravel at Turn 9 and bogged down.
Newgarden, Herta and Grosjean pitted and fell to 16th, 17th and 18th.
At the restart, VeeKay held on ahead of O’Ward and McLaughlin but Rossi got ahead of Palou to claim fourth. Rosenqvist ran sixth but soon after the restart he was passed into Turn 5 by the alternate-tired Scott Dixon. A lap later, he lost out to Power, who had restarted 10th, but had passed Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal, taking advantage of his reds.
At half distance, Lap 45, VeeKay led O’Ward by 2.5sec, with McLaughlin a further 1.5sec back, closely pursued by Rossi, Palou, Dixon and Power, with the latter pair on alternates, and this top septet covered by seven seconds.
Further back, Herta had got the jump on Newgarden at the restart and had scythed and elbowed his way forward, taking 10th from Meyer Shank Racing’s Simon Pagenaud. Rahal and Herta then deposed Rosenqvist on Lap 47, and Pagenaud passed the Swede at Turn 5 one lap later to claim 10th. Newgarden and Grosjean had got stuck down in 14th and 15th behind Christian Lundgaard, but once Grosjean finally slipped ahead of Newgarden on Lap 55, he wasted no time in outbraking RLL’s rookie for 13th into Turn 5. He then made light work of Takuma Sato’s Dale Coyne Racing with RWR machine and Rosenqvist to grab 11th by Lap 58.
Rossi, Rahal and Pagenaud pitted on Lap 60. The following lap, VeeKay, O’Ward, McLaughlin and Power pulled in. VeeKay just got out ahead of O’Ward, after the AMSP driver delivered a great in-lap and his crew produced a perfect pitstop. All up the straight from Turn 2 to Turn 5, O’Ward was threatening. VeeKay flicked to the left to defend the inside, but O’Ward drove around the outside to claim the (net) lead.
Dixon went a lap longer than McLaughlin and Power, and emerged just ahead of McLaughlin. Although the series sophomore then went around the outside of his compatriot at Turn 5, he outbraked himself at Turn 8/9, and slid onto the grass briefly, allowing Dixon through and into fourth.
The final front runner to stop – two laps after O’Ward and VeeKay – was Palou, and between a brilliant in-lap and well executed stop from the Ganassi #10 crew, the reigning champion emerged between them to claim second.
Power, the highest-placed driver on fresh reds, closed down on McLaughlin and snatched fifth from his teammate on Lap 68 at Turn 5. Just a couple of laps later, McLaughlin was having to defend from Herta, while Herta’s teammates Rossi and Grosjean fought over ninth, resolved in the latter’s favor on Lap 73.
Palou closed the gap to O’Ward to around 1sec, but then the AMSP driver started edging away again with some personal best laps. Power dived up the inside of Dixon at Turn 5 to claim fourthon Lap 75, but when Herta tried to replicate the move on McLaughlin, he ran into the Penske driver’s left-rear and spun himself around, dropping to 10th.
O’Ward and Palou, running two seconds apart in the final 10 laps, were both pushing hard and had dropped VeeKay. The ECR driver was having to keep up a strong pace however, as Power was charging at him, and with five laps to go the gap was 3.7sec. Dixon was in a still impressive fifth – up from 13th on the grid – but the action was in his mirrors, as McLaughlin tried to stave off Rahal and Grosjean. In fact, it was Rahal and Grosjean that got into it, the Frenchman knocking the RLL driver twice on the exit of Turn 5 on Lap 86.
Up front, O’Ward had wisely conserved his push to pass and therefore fuel, and was only let off the leash on the final lap. He had executed perfectly and rolled home the winner, by one second, ahead of last year’s winner Palou.
VeeKay was a further 11.5sec behind, turning in his quickest lap of the race after allowing Power to get within two seconds. VeeKay claimed the final podium spot by 2.7sec ahead of the Penske driver.
Dixon retained his fifth ahead of McLaughlin, while Grosjean got around Rahal on the final lap as the RLL driver sputtered low on fuel.
Championship points:
1. Palou 144; 2. McLaughlin 141; 3. Newgarden 135; 4. Power 134; 5. O’Ward 114; 6. Dixon 113; 7. VeeKay 106; 8. Grosjean 101; 9= Ericsson, Rahal 84; 11. Herta 79; 12. Pagenaud 69; 13. Rossi 62; 14. Sato 61; 15. Lundgaard 57.
