O’Ward and Arrow McLaren SP teammate Felix Rosenqvist were battling Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda teammates Ericsson and Tony Kanaan for the win on Sunday, but after the final pitstops, O’Ward said he felt on the back foot.
O’Ward said he was “really proud of the team. They gave me a really, really good car. I was so happy with the handling. We did everything perfectly. We did the fuel perfect. No mistakes were done. We positioned ourselves perfectly to have a shot at it.
“When we got done with that last pit stop, Felix undercut us, then when I pitted and started catching up to him, Marcus out of nowhere just came out with insane speed. Got by me like I was standing still. Got up to Felix I think within two laps, passed him like he was standing still, left him.
“I got to Felix finally. I passed him. I had nothing for [Ericsson]. I said, ‘I need a yellow to try and have a shot.’ Tony was also really quick coming behind me. I know he was catching me faster than what I was catching Marcus. When the restart happened, I said, ‘I have one shot, I have to go flat,’ and still wasn't enough.
“Sadly, they have the faster car. We need to do a better job. We need to come back next year and give it hell again. I'm proud of the job we did. It's my best result in the 500. It's a bit of a tough pill to swallow after such a long race, doing everything correctly.”
The yellow, then red flag for Jimmie Johnson’s shunt gave Ericsson two laps to hold off O’Ward, and he did this successfully for one lap, breaking the tow down the front and back straights to give the AMSP driver more work to do. Coming onto the front straight to start the final lap, however, O’Ward was right under his rear wing and he drew alongside him as they approached Turn 1, but the Ganassi driver had forced his rival to try the outside line, and then hung tough on the inside, not lifting the throttle.
Asked if he might have gotten another run, O’Ward shook his head: “Too fast in the straight…At the end I was surprised with how much more pace they had in a straight line with quite a bit more downforce. I was just trying to time it as good as possible. Obviously the weaving helped him. Staying on the inside helped him. I got alongside him, but we all know how that ends up in the last lap: no way he would have backed off.”
O’Ward revealed that he had asked his race engineer Will Anderson to trim out his car to counteract its speed deficit to the Ganassi cars, and that made the car alarming.
Especially the last stint, the car was hairy for a few moments,” he said. “That was the only way for me to have a shot because I knew they [Ganassi] were going to pull out something from their back pocket. I knew it. I think we were one of three cars that was really trimmed. Whenever we practiced and we put the wicker on with everybody else, I said, ‘No, this is turtle-slow. We need to trim out and we risk it. I will make sure I don't put the car in the wall.’
“But it was hairy. The red flag really helped me cool down the rear tire.”
Explaining the difference his setup had made, he said: “I was loose. That was the only way. Without that I would not even have had a chance. Felix wasn't as trim as I was and you saw how much more he needed. I kind of had the step up, but then we both didn't have that bigger step that we needed.
“These guys had the better car. They did the better job. They had the better package. We need to work. That's just the only thing we can kind of look at. Come back next year and give it a run again.”
O’Ward rejected the notion that the AMSP cars were inferior to the Ganassi cars in dirty air, implying instead that a power deficit was the problem, in that he could never have pulled away in the manner that Ericsson did in the final stint before the red flag.
“No, I don't think they were better, especially in traffic,” he said. “I think my car was the best and I was the most comfortable with it. Like in a train of three or four cars, five, six, no one stood a chance against me. Out front, not so much.”
