Scott McLaughlin started from pole position, his first ever, while his teammate in Team Penske Will Power, the only one in the top 10 starting on the hardest Firestone tires, spinned at the last corner. In this way he lost positions in favor of the Honda of the Andretti Autosport team driven by Colton Herta and the Chevrolet Ed Carpenter entrusted to Rinus VeeKay.
Romain Grosjean also failed to make his way and his difficulties allowed Marcus Ericsson, at the wheel of the Chip Ganassi team’s Honda, to overtake him on the outside of Turn 1 to have an internal trajectory at the entrance to Turn 2.
Behind them, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou started in seventh and eighth position respectively, behind the sixth classified in qualifying Simon Pagenaud, while Pato O’Ward on Saturday did not go beyond the 16th time by deploying his Arrow McLaren SP in the rear.
Josef Newgarden made his stop on lap 10 when he was 11th, moving from the softer Firestones to the primaries. A couple of laps later, Dixon did the same thing by finishing ahead of Newgarden, while O’Ward managed to overtake the two former champions.
Meanwhile Power held the fourth position well, five seconds behind the leader McLaughlin and putting pressure on VeeKay. On lap 15 he overtook him, and Veekay also had to watch his back from Ericsson and Grosjean. The Swede overtook at Turn 18 on lap 10, then Grosjean, Graham Rahal and Alex Palou also passed the driver Ed Carpenter Racing.
Power closed the gap from Herta, whose tires were collapsing, and jumped to second position at Turn 1 on lap 20. The Penske driver was more than six seconds behind McLaughlin, who had handled his lead very well. However, Power managed to gain a second per lap.
Caution came out on lap 25, as David Malukas, making his IndyCar debut, hit the wall at the exit of Turn 3 and his car remained in the middle of the track.
When the pits opened, McLaughlin, Power, Herta, Ericcson, Grosjean and Rahal were the first to stop, with the Swede exiting alongside Rahal and the latter having joined Grosjean on the outside. But the driver Andretti slowed down to avoid chaos, fortunately.
Brian Barnhart had chosen to leave out Alex Rossi, the only one not to have made the stop, ahead of Dixon, O’Ward, Newgarden, Pagenaud, rookie Kyle Kirkwood of the AJ Foyt Racing team and Felix Rosenqvist with the second Arrow McLaren. McLaughlin, Power, Palou and Herta meanwhile occupied the positions from 13th to 16th respectively.
Before the restart on lap 35, Ericsson was forced to finish at the back of the pack for an unsafe release in the pit.
When the green flag was flown, Rahal overtook Herta and, right in front of them, Palou took Power. The Australian from team Penske had Herta in his mirrors, who had passed Rahal over.
Rossi made his stop on lap 37, leaving Dixon, O’Ward and Newgarden in the top three.
On lap 38, Herta passed Power smoothly at Turn 10 to take 13th position. The 2014 champion was very cautious with his reds and fuel and stayed behind him, allowing rookie Christian Lundgaard to overtake Grosjean on the outside at Turn 1 to take 16th position, just behind teammate Rahal.
Newgarden was the first of the first three to stop for a second time on lap 42 and Pagenaud and Rosenqvist did the same on the next lap. O’Ward started lap 48 before his second stop, Dixon made it a lap later leaving VeeKay in the lead 1.3 seconds ahead of Calum Ilott. Right behind them, however, were McLaughlin, Palou, Herta, Power, Rahal and Lundgaard.
Ilott pitted at the end of lap 57 and returned to 21st position. VeeKay stopped on lap 62 and would have needed another Caution to complete the remaining 38 laps without stopping again.
Surprisingly, Herta also made a second stop to avoid being in a dangerous area, then McLaughlin stopped, followed by Palou and Rahal. McLaughlin remained ahead of Palou. Power continued for another lap and was ahead of Herta, who instead got stuck behind Pagenaud until the Frenchman made his stop on lap 69.
Dixon and O’Ward, who were at 13 and a half seconds, jumped to first and second position respectively, but had to stop again. The race felt like a six-way affair between McLaughlin, Palou, VeeKay, Power, Herta and Rahal.
A spin by Kellett led the Arrow McLaren SP to make O’Ward make a final stop, but there were no yellow flags or anything else as the Foyt driver managed to get back on track in 12th position.
Power overtook VeeKay on lap 78 to take fourth. The Dutchman was under fuel management and Power made the last of two stops.
Dixon made his third and last pit giving the lead to the two, with McLaughlin ahead of Palou with a lead of 2.3 seconds and Power 4 and a half seconds behind. However, the gap narrowed because Power received a little more fuel and on lap 85, when there were 15 left, his gap was under three seconds.
VeeKay slipped to sixth as he tried to manage his fuel, but managed to stay ahead of Herta, who had similar problems, and ahead of Rahal. Behind the RLL driver was Grosjean, who was desperately trying to hold his position on Dixon and Lundgaard.
With 13 laps to go, McLaughlin was blocked by Jimmie Johnson, and this allowed his teammate Palou to close the gap to seven tenths of a second. The rider Penske, however, kept his cool and on lap 94 his advantage was back to more than a second. He was also helped by the warning given to Palou, who was told he couldn’t push hard until the end.
However, a lap later it was McLaughlin himself who wasted time, with Palou managing to finish within half a second. Fifteen seconds behind, Herta overtook VeeKay to take fourth with three laps to go and one lap later Grosjean did the same maneuver overtaking Rahal.
With two laps to go, McLaughlin and Palou were stuck behind rookie Devlin DeFrancesco, but the three-time Supercars champion managed to become an IndyCar winner, crossing the line first with more than half a second ahead of Palou. Power finished third.
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