The downhill hairpin left-handed Turn 5 follows a long climb from Turn 2, and it is notoriously difficult to judge the ultimate braking distance for the corner while on a cold set of Firestone’s harder primary compound tires.
VeeKay led the first two stints of the race from pole position but on the in lap for both he and the pursuing O’Ward, the gap between them shrank from two seconds to virtually nothing, partly a result of VeeKay getting held up by a backmarker. As they departed the pits, O’Ward was so close that he even took a look down the inside of Turn 2, before slipstreaming the Ed Carpenter Racing car up the hill.
