You had to go back to June 23, 2019 to locate the last time that alexander rossi he enjoyed the honeys of triumph. That day, the American took a dominant victory at the Road America circuit by 20 seconds, the seventh of his career, and which moved him closer to the leadership of Josef Newgarden. Since then, there have been more than three years of frustrationserrors, mechanical problems, problems in the pits and all kinds of unsuspected occurrences. An unthinkable 50-race drought that, this Saturday, Rossi has cut in the venue that launched him to international fame.
the american pilot It has been imposed for the first time on the Indy GP circuit, where he started in the front row with poleman Felix Rosenqvist. The Swede retained the lead in a choppy start from behind. Trying to move up, Colton Herta touched Will Power, and he couldn’t help but spin Pato O’Ward, which saw his third position on the grid disappear. Power took damage that cost him multiple positions, but Herta continued to advancefinishing fifth on the first lap and then overtaking Christian Lundgaard.
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A timely yellow caused by Dalton Kellett stalling after a contact with Jimmie Johnson allowed Power and O’Ward to repair damage in the pits. On the restart, Herta took out the rod to pass Josef Newgarden and take advantage of a failed braking rush by Rossi. Finally, on the eighth lap, Herta’s great pace earned him the edge over Rosenqvist, whose softs suffered the dreaded early drop in performance and lost a further three places over the course of two laps. This preceded the first period of stops between laps 11 and 16, where only Scott McLaughlin (6th), Jimmie Johnson and a Marcus Ericsson in dire need of a comeback chose to lengthen their stint.
This was the best moment of Álex Palou’s career, who went from seventh to ninth in the first few laps after running into the grass in the initial incident and being overtaken by drivers on soft rubber. The Spaniard brought his stoppage forward to lap 11 and rode for much of the stint in sixth position. This became seventh when McLaughlin pitted ahead of him and Newgarden, but his soft tires soon gave out and he dropped three places on lap 34being forced to advance his stop again.
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With Herta, Rossi and Lundgaard standing out in the lead, Pagenaud’s car stalled on the track without gas one lap later. A yellow card that could have come in handy for Palou, since no one else had made his second stop… but Race Direction opted for a usual methodology in those incidents that do not require immediate intervention, and allowed the entire grid to make their pending stop with a green flag. The yellow came out just as the leaders, who had passed by before the incident, were making their stop. Despite this, Will Power had made his second stop just before on lap 32 and this allowed him to match his strategy with everyone else, putting him fourth while Palou dropped out of the top 10.
Herta led the start, and seemed destined to lead an Andretti Autosport one-two, but his impetuousness got in his way again on lap 42. An overly aggressive attack from a piano ended up causing a clutch failure which disabled his car almost immediately and forced him to abandon. Since then, the race has been in the hands of Rossi, who retained a two to four second lead over Lundgaard without too much rush, which settled when they both made their final stop at the same time on lap 61 of 85.
The leaders had much more long-run pace than the Penske cars, and with no more challenge than a little smoke coming out of their car three laps from the end, Rossi took Andretti Autosport’s second win of 2022. On the same circuit where he stunned on his debut last year, Christian Lundgaard climbed onto the podium for the first time in second place, prolonging the ‘pro-European style circuit’ status of the Indy GP. Power would no longer lose the advantageous situation in which the yellow card left him against McLaughlin and Newgarden, and the three simply followed each other closely without any threat of attack. With that, the australian extends his excellent run of top 4 that returns him to the lead of the general despite adding only one win.
Having executed a precise run and a good restart from the yellow halfway through the event, Rinus VeeKay chained another good result in sixth placeahead of a solid Graham Rahal who gained quite a few places at his first stop. In eighth position, Scott Dixon saved the furniture to end up as Ganassi’s top driverand a reviled Felix Rosenqvist saw his pole position move to a ninth-place finish, his bid to extend his first stop failing.
At the end of the top 10 was Álex Palou, with another sense of missed opportunity, but keeping Ericsson and O’Ward out. His sixth position in the table does not change and his disadvantage is already above 50 points with four races to go, a situation that will have to solve as soon as possible. The Nashville Grand Prix on the difficult and criticized street circuit will be the only one before facing the Gateway oval and the permanent circuits of Portland and Laguna Seca, but the options are beginning to be scarce.
BRICKYARD GRAND PRIX RESULTS – INDIANAPOLIS
Photos: IndyCar Media