A very strange start, where only the top eight or nine cars were in formation, saw Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Josef Newgarden easily convert his pole into the lead, while Simon Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves passed Takuma Sato to claim second and third for Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.
Behind ran Pato O’Ward and Colton Herta, while Alexander Rossi immediately started slicing through the field, and by Lap 3 he was into sixth having dismissed Scott Dixon, Scott McLaughlin, and Marcus Ericsson.
Rossi then pitted on Lap 4, to get off the alternate tires, and to tackle the race on a three-stop strategy.
The other driver on the move in the early laps was Power, who had started in 16th on the harder primary tires but had moved into the Top 10 by Lap 5, ahead of fellow primary-tired runner Dixon.
The pair of them outbraked Marcus Ericsson on Lap 7 to claim seventh and eighth respectively. The alternate-tired cars were now struggling, and Power and Dixon passed Herta to claim sixth and seventh which became fifth and sixth when Sato pulled off into the pits.
Power passed O’Ward for fourth on Lap 10, Castroneves for third and Pagenaud for second on successive laps. Not far behind him, Dixon and Palou were pulling the same maneuvers on their primaries, to run third and fourth by Lap 12, and behind them in fifth was another primary tired runner, Kyle Kirkwood. Power, Dixon and Palou passed Newgarden to assume the top three spots on Lap 14, and on Lap 16 Kirkwood demoted the polesitter, too.
Rossi, thanks to his early first stop, had charged through to sixth and he went past Newgarden to claim fifth on Lap 16.
Pagenaud managed to make it to Lap 17 on his reds, pulling out of seventh place to grab a set of blacks, and Newgarden and O’Ward stopped a lap later.
Kirkwood pitted from fourth on Lap 23, allowing Rossi, Devlin DeFrancesco and Rinus VeeKay into fourth, fifth and sixth, but Rossi made his second stop next time by.
Up front, Power had pulled a five second lead on Dixon before pitting on Lap 25, and he emerged with another set of primaries, whereas Dixon and Palou went one more lap and both grabbed a set of the fragile alternates.
Behind Power, Dixon, Palou, Rossi and Kirkwood, was Newgarden, some 23sec off the lead and being pursued by Sato, O’Ward and Pagenaud. Already out were Graham Rahal who struck the Turn 2 wall on Lap 3, Castroneves who suffered an electrical glitch after 20 laps, while a lap down were Penske’s Scott McLaughlin after a long trip down the Turn 3 escape road and Tatiana Calderon in the #11 Foyt-Chevy.
Power’s lead over Dixon was out to 8.5 seconds on Lap 35, as he was continually able to turn in 1min16.9sec laps, while the alternates on the two pursuing Ganassi cars were bleeding lap time. On Lap 37, Rossi was within striking distance of Palou and dived down the inside of him at Turn 3 on Lap 39. Dixon proved a tougher nut to crack, finally getting it done on Lap 43, again at Turn 3. By this time, he was 18sec behind Power, but knew that Power would have to run reds for his final stint.
Palou pitted on Lap 43, which allowed Kirkwood, Newgarden, O’Ward and Ericsson ahead. But the following lap, Dixon, Newgarden and O’Ward were in and they emerged still ahead of Palou.
Rossi hadn’t closed the gap on Power once past Dixon and so once he got embroiled in traffic, he pitted for the third and final time, and his pitcrew out comfortably ahead of Dixon.
Kirkwood pitted on Lap 48 and emerged in ninth, but he tagged the wall on his out lap and bent his suspension.
Power’s lead over Rossi on Lap 50 was 44sec when he stopped for his reds. After his out lap, that gap was 16sec. Could he go fast enough to stay away from Rossi and not kill his reds? By Lap 58, Power was still 11.7sec to the good, but had to squeeze 12 more laps out of his reds…
Behind Rossi, Dixon was matching his pace and was only 2.8sec back, with Newgarden a similar gap behind the Ganassi car, and staying 1sec ahead of O’Ward and 2sec ahead of Palou.
With seven to go, Power’s lead was 10sec, and his laps were 1min18s, possibly so as not to catch lapped traffic, but he was gaining on Jack Harvey nonetheless. With four to go, Power was eight seconds to the good, with three to go it was 6.5sec, two to go it was 5sec, with one to go it was 2.5sec.
Power held on to win by 1.0027sec, with Dixon six seconds further back, ahead of Newgarden, O’Ward and Palou.
Rinus VeeKay crashed out of seventh place on the last lap, promoting Ericsson and Herta into seventh and eighth.
| Cla | Driver | Team | Laps | Time | Gap | Mph | Pits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Will Power |  Team Penske | 70 | 1:32'08.818 | 107.209 | 2 | |
| 2 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti Autosport | 70 | 1:32'09.821 | 1.002 | 109.233 | 3 |
| 3 |  Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | 70 | 1:32'15.942 | 7.123 | 107.114 | 2 |
| 4 | Josef Newgarden | Team Penske | 70 | 1:32'19.489 | 10.671 | 105.999 | 2 |
| 5 |  Patricio O'Ward | Arrow McLaren SP | 70 | 1:32'20.053 | 11.234 | 106.632 | 2 |
| 6 |  Alex Palou | Chip Ganassi Racing | 70 | 1:32'23.723 | 14.905 | 105.398 | 2 |
| 7 |  Marcus Ericsson | Chip Ganassi Racing | 70 | 1:32'49.717 | 40.899 | 91.087 | 2 |
| 8 | Colton Herta | Andretti Autosport | 70 | 1:32'49.946 | 41.128 | 91.030 | 2 |
| 9 |  Simon Pagenaud | Meyer Shank Racing | 70 | 1:32'50.112 | 41.294 | 88.864 | 2 |
| 10 | Felix Rosenqvist | Arrow McLaren SP | 70 | 1:32'51.695 | 42.877 | 92.684 | 3 |
| 11 | David Malukas | Dale Coyne Racing with HMD | 70 | 1:32'54.709 | 45.891 | 95.105 | 3 |
| 12 | Conor Daly | Ed Carpenter Racing | 70 | 1:32'59.995 | 51.176 | 93.437 | 3 |
| 13 |  Takuma Sato | Dale Coyne Racing | 70 | 1:33'01.034 | 52.216 | 97.467 | 3 |
| 14 |  Christian Lundgaard | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 70 | 1:33'21.594 | 1'12.776 | 95.114 | 3 |
| 15 |  Jack Harvey | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 70 | 1:33'37.059 | 1'28.241 | 94.046 | 3 |
| 16 |  Rinus van Kalmthout | Ed Carpenter Racing | 69 | 1:31'19.475 | 1 Lap | 107.862 | 3 |
| 17 | Romain Grosjean | Andretti Autosport | 69 | 1:32'18.328 | 1 Lap | 105.426 | 3 |
| 18 |  Devlin DeFrancesco | Andretti Autosport | 69 | 1:32'50.587 | 1 Lap | 89.686 | 2 |
| 19 | Scott McLaughlin | Team Penske | 69 | 1:32'58.872 | 1 Lap | 93.718 | 2 |
| 20 | Dalton Kellett | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 69 | 1:33'28.402 | 1 Lap | 89.791 | 2 |
| 21 | Santino Ferrucci | Juncos Hollinger Racing | 68 | 1:32'14.190 | 2 Laps | 101.948 | 3 |
| 22 | Jimmie Johnson | Chip Ganassi Racing | 68 | 1:32'53.894 | 2 Laps | 89.652 | 3 |
| 23 |  Tatiana Calderon | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 68 | 1:32'56.390 | 2 Laps | 95.516 | 2 |
| 24 | Kyle Kirkwood | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 49 | 1:08'07.132 | 21 Laps | 32.204 | 3 |
| 25 |  Helio Castroneves | Meyer Shank Racing | 21 | 1:09'53.061 | 49 Laps | 3.311 | 2 |
| 26 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 2 | 10'59.767 | 68 Laps | 14.894 | 1 |
| View full results | |||||||
