You should never sell the skin of the bear before hunting it. A vital lesson that never fails to recall its validity, and that today has manifested itself twice in the 375 miles from Texas. Even with all the general pessimism about the quality of the event, the end result was an enjoyable race with different variables, multiple changes of position and leadership. The last of them occurred a few meters from the end, when what seemed like a sure victory for Scott McLaughlin happened at the hands of a Josef Newgarden which added one more notch to the list of great historic finishes in Texas, where Álex Palou finished the race in seventh place.
The two drivers followed each other relatively closely over the final 40 laps, but Newgarden didn’t seem to have enough to get past a McLaughlin who was on the brink of starting the season with two wins in a row. The New Zealander skilfully dodged the different groups of traffic he encountered, but David Malukas’ car choked on him on the back straight. Newgarden saw the opportunity, launched the car down the treacherous outside line, and sped up just long enough to overtake his teammate at the exit of the last corner, achieving victory by just 66 thousandths.
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This maneuver put the icing on the cake a frantic race, in which it soon became clear that several cars would indeed be able to overtake others on the outside. In this way, McLaughlin stormed the lead in the second lap at the expense of the Poleman Felix Rosenqvist. Behind, in the middle zone, Alexander Rossi missed the start and was lanced on lap 15 when his car suddenly broke down, causing the first interruption of the afternoon in the form of a caution. The first stint was fairly uneventful for most, with the advances of Colton Herta (from ninth to fourth) and Marcus Ericsson (from 14th to ninth) being the highlights.
Arriving at the first period of stops on lap 60, the Penske team released its strategic genius by moving the first stop about five laps forward of two of its pilots, thereby allowing traffic to be less of a nuisance. Once everyone had made their stop, McLaughlin moved up to a 12-second lead, and Newgarden, who had dropped from seventh to tenth before the stop, moved up to second in the process. Pato O’Ward joined his partner in the hunt for the Penskes, while Takuma Sato saw his third position disappear after stalling the Malukas car in front of him in the pits. Arriving lap 100, the Japanese race came to an end after slightly touching the wall, causing the second yellow.
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In the period of massive stoppages that followed, the McLaren SP drivers blew themselves up with two mistakes, when Rosenqvist overbraked and ran over O’Ward to a mechanic. Will Power, who had been giving ground little by little, went from eighth place to complete a Penske triplet in the lead, followed by a strong Scott Dixon, a Marcus Ericsson who was still on the rise and a Rinus VeeKay who would later assume more prominence. . For its part, Álex Palou was planted for the first time in the top 10 in a solid way, placing in eighth position. In this period, Romain Grosjean developed an engine failure and was forced to abandon his first superspeedway race, in which he was sitting in 13th position.
This ‘caution’ caused a period of 50 laps in which there were only two laps with a green flag after two separate accidents in slides in which Devlin DeFrancesco was the protagonist. The Canadian, who had already been partially to blame for Sato’s crash, choked fellow rookie Kyle Kirkwood’s approach on the outside of Turn 4 at the start of lap 115, leading the Foyt driver to lose control and crash . As the race restarted on lap 129, DeFrancesco overly optimistically launched himself around the inside of Turn 3 over Graham Rahal for 11th position and collided with him, taking this place from Hélio Castroneves in a spectacular triple accident
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With this, it was not until lap 149 when the race returned to a normal rhythm, but not before the final abandonment of poleman Rosenqvist occurred due to the failure of the transmission shaft. Being aware that everyone could arrive at a stop if enough gasoline was saved, the next 30 laps became a carousel of overtaking in which the pilots came and went as they saw fit for savings and situation on the track. In this way, McLaughlin, Newgarden, VeeKay, Power and Ericsson alternated one after another in the lead of the test, in some cases with daring maneuvers to three in parallel on the outside.
Towards the end of the stint, VeeKay dropped numerous places and was forced to stop a few laps early (Lap 187) in the final pit stop. This placed him in the lead due to the ‘undercut’, but with 61 laps to go, only a yellow card would allow him to be in a competitive rhythm. Unfortunately for him, this did not happen, and McLaughlin agreed to the lead on lap 200 of 248, being later many others who accounted for the Dutchman until he finished tenth. Only Newgarden and Ericsson took advantage of the situation to go for a McLaughlin that seemed insurmountable… until, as we mentioned above, the traffic tipped the balance in the last moment.
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Newgarden achieves with this triumph his 21st IndyCar win, his second on the Texas oval after 2019 and the ninth on the oval, only three fewer than on the circuit despite having played twice as many races on that terrain. At the same time, it was Team Penske’s 600th win among all competitions, a considerable achievement. McLaughlin had to settle for repeating his second place from last year, this being his third podium finish in IndyCar, and retaining the overall lead with a wide margin of 28 points over Power, fourth today without having great speed in the final stint. Ahead of him, Ericsson improved his best oval position by two positions, this being his fifth podium finish in the category.
The other great news of the race was the Spectacular performance by Jimmie Johnson, who in his first oval in IndyCar and from 18th place on the grid was reunited with his best version. He worked his way up, cracking the top 10 on lap 175, passing his teammate Palou and even breaking into the top five by passing Scott Dixon with just a few laps to go. The six-time IndyCar champion finally prevailed over the seven-time NASCAR champion, but his sixth place, improving his best position by eleven places in the road races he had done in single-seaters, they place him as a clear contender for his first 500 miles of Indianapolis.
On a weekend when his car was relatively lacking in speed, Álex Palou managed to save a seventh place that gives him good points and allows him to stay in the top three overall, now 32 points behind McLaughlin. He was unhurried in the final laps by Simon Pagenaud or the surprising Santino Ferrucci, who replaced at the last minute at the wheel of Raha’s #45he to a Jack Harvey who developed symptoms of concussion on Sunday morning after a serious accident in Practice 2 on Saturday. Despite starting last and not having done a single lap all weekend, Ferrucci pulled on his usual good work on ovals to get a good ninth position.
The American driver, who already drove that car in several races last year and who will compete for Dreyer & Reinbold in the Indianapolis 500, benefited in part from the fateful day for Andretti Autosport, topped by a lousy stop in Colton Herta’s car on lap 188 that prevented any chance of a good result. For his part, O’Ward developed additional problems during the event and his 15th-place finish prolongs a forgettable start to the season. He and all the competitors they will have three weeks to reset before completely changing the challenge on the prestigious streets of Long Beach.
FINAL RESULTS OF THE 375 MILES OF TEXAS 2022
Photos: IndyCar Media