Every championship fight has its season-defining high points, in which the situation is usually turned upside down in the form of wins and retirements, or the contenders meet with dire consequences. All this and much more happened in a Road America Grand Prix in which Josef Newgarden took a victory with great economic value, but in which Marcus Ericsson was the great winner of the day with his second position after the problems of all his direct rivals. Including an Álex Palou with whom he had a controversial incident that left the Spanish driver out of the race.
The start of the race was altered by three yellow flags in the first 10 laps, but the most relevant was undoubtedly the second, after the restart. Heading into Turn 5, Ericsson launched an overtaking attempt for third at a considerable distance from Palou, braking on the inside. The Swede managed to adjust just enough to be almost completely ahead, but as they both went through the corner, his right rear wheel hit Palou’s left front tyre, sending the Spaniard to the runway with suspension damage.
Palou lost 10 laps in the pits and, although he returned to the race to try to grab some points, the lack of retirements prevented him from doing so. The Spaniard was quite upset in the subsequent interview and very critical of his partner, who later apologized. Before his incident, Jimmie Johnson caused the first caution by going off the track at turn 3 after a failed maneuver on Tatiana Calderón. A quirky duel then ended unnecessarily when Devlin DeFrancesco hit Will Power from behind under braking on lap 5. The overall leader was able to continue with some damage, and would go on to finish the race in an equally damaging 19th.
In the lead, poleman Alexander Rossi managed to hold off Newgarden’s onslaught on each and every rebound, though Newgarden stayed close. Both made their first stop simultaneously on lap 14, where Rossi was slowed down by a slower stop and McLaughlin stopping in the pits ahead of him. In this way, Newgarden came out in front with the leadership of the test, and even Ericsson managed to place himself in the middle after his stop on the following lap. However, the Indy 500 winner made a mistake by going wide at Turn 7 on that same lap, and Rossi regained his second place finish.
Ahead of all of them was Felix Rosenqvist, who from ninth place was the only one of the top 14 men to make his stop during the third caution, and who needed to lengthen his stints a lot to avoid having to make an additional stop. He held the lead on the track until his stop, he was third after the second stop of the leaders and saving him in the next stint only dropped him to sixth place. Ahead, Romain Grosjean and a spectacular Colton Herta who had gone from 11th to 6th place in the first few laps, and who had his pluses and minuses with the Frenchman until he was ahead after the first stop.
In the lead, Newgarden’s advantage was maintained at all times in a stable margin of four seconds, and it was like that until the general received another bombshell on lap 48, with Pato O’Ward’s mechanical break just seven laps from the end . The Mexican had failed to gain ground from his initial sixth place, and was running in ninth position when his car gave way passing by the fearsome Kink. All this led to a great finish that should have been five laps, but only three laps due to the spin with which Hélio Castroneves stalled the car on the first attempt to restart.
Despite having used up almost all of his push-to-pass, Ericsson saw an opportunity to overtake Rossi at the restart and executed it, going the distance to secure second place. The first had no discussion, and it was for a Newgarden that, with its third victory in eight races, secured the prize of one million dollars (to be shared with an NGO) implemented this year for the first driver to win a race in a permanent circuit, an urban (Long Beach) and an oval (Texas). Despite this, his inconsistency this year has him 32 points behind a leadership that Ericsson has solidified with the problems of Power (he is still his closest rival at 27 points), O’Ward and Palou, who falls to fifth place after 47 points.
Rossi had to settle for another podium in his quest to end his win drought, while Grosjean also edged out Herta in the closing stages. The American, without push-to-pass under his belt, momentarily lost fifth position to Rosenqvist, but in the last corner he caught the McLaren SP driver again and regained it. Scott McLaughlin finished behind the Swede, with a good seventh place over Graham Rahal who was in 15th position when he launched the same Rosenqvist bet to stop on the third caution.
As if Ericsson’s fortunes weren’t enough today, Dixon had a strangely low-key day in which his ninth-place finish was pretty much the highest he’d ever been in the entire event, in front of a Christian Lundgaard scratching his second top 10 in IndyCar. In short, a great day for Newgarden, but above all for an Ericsson that, now, is established as the definitive candidate for the title with nine races to go. Ganassi will have three weeks to restore internal peace before the axes fly again on July 3 in Mid-Ohio.
Photos: IndyCar Media