Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix Results

Team Penske’s Will Power took home the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix win Saturday afternoon at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. It was his first win of the season. He led 56 laps and beat the second-place finisher Romain Grosjean by 1.1142 seconds.

Pato O’Ward started the race on the pole. He led the opening sixteen laps before making his first scheduled pit stop. Once the pit stops were done, Will Power, who pitted on lap thirteen, was the new leader on lap 21.

Power’s pit strategy worked in this race, pitting before everyone else. The race ran caution-free until lap 68 when the points leader Alex Palou’s engine blew up and came to a stop at turn six that brought out the first caution.

On the restart on lap 71, Power got a good jump on Colton Herta to keep the lead. However, Herta would lose second place to Romain Grosjean with fourteen laps to go. Will Power looked to be heading to victory lane until Scott McLaughlin hit turned Rinus VeeKay at turn seven to bring out the second caution. McLaughlin restarted in the back after being penalized for avoidable contact.

Will Power got off to another good restart over Grosjean with seven laps to go. He held off Grosjean to win the race. It was Team Penske’s second win of the season.

During his post-race interview, Power was thrilled to get his first win of the season. “We needed that as a group. I can’t tell you how good these guys have been all year. Flawless on pit stops. They’ve given me the car, and we’ve had some bad luck. I’ve made some mistakes, as well. So stoked to get the Verizon 5G car in Victory Lane. Oh, what a relief, man!”

On his second-place finish, Romain Grosjean said during his post-race interview that he ran out of push-to-pass. “We had a good car all day long, and we fought at the front. We ran out of push-to-pass early today. I had to use quite a bit early in the race to make sure we were going through the lapped cars. Through the end, Will had more than I did. I just had to go flat out and try not to make any mistakes.”

With a fifth-place finish, Pato O’Ward trails Alex Palou by twenty-one points in the standings with four races to go in the season.

The rest of the top ten finishers were Colton Herta third, Alexander Rossi fourth, Pato O’Ward fifth, Jack Harvey sixth, Graham Rahal seventh, Josef Newgarden eighth, Marcus Ericsson ninth, and Takuma Sato tenth. There were eleven lead changes and two cautions for five laps.

The NTT IndyCar Series visits the Wide World Technology Raceway at Gateway for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 next Saturday, August 21^st, at 8 pm on NBCSN.