Pato O’Ward wins his first race of the season at Barber Motorsports Park

On Sunday afternoon, the NTT IndyCar Series was at Barber Motorsport Park in Birmingham, Alabama, for the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama.

Ed Carpenter Racing driver Rinus VeeKay started the race on the pole, with Arrow McLaren SP driver Pato O’Ward starting second.

On lap 15, Colton Herta and Romain Grosjean were in a battle for the 20^th position. Herta tried to get the position away from Grosjean, but he ran off the track at turn one, and Grosjean kept the 20^th position.

Rinus VeeKay led the opening 29 laps before making his first scheduled pit stop as Alex Palou took the lead. Three laps later, the race’s only caution came out on lap 32.

Callum Ilott tried to keep the 13th position away from Helio Castroneves and overshot entering turn six, getting loose in the process and going into the gravel trap.

On lap 40, Helio Castroneves hit Jimmie Johnson from behind, causing Johnson to spin at turn six. He was issued an avoidable contact penalty and had to serve a drive-through.

Finally, on lap 62, shortly after Rinus VeeKay and Pato O’Ward made their last pit stops. O’Ward passed VeeKay on the outside of turn five to take seventh place. It would be the winning move as many drivers upfront had not made their last scheduled pit stops. Once pit stops were complete, O’Ward was the leader, while VeeKay dropped to third place behind Alex Palou.

In the closing laps of the race, Romain Grosjean hit Graham Rahal twice, causing Rahal to retaliate. Meanwhile, Pat O’Ward led the last 26 laps to win the race by .9800 seconds over Alex Palou. It was O’Ward’s first win of the season.

“When Taylor Kiel (Team President) told me we were fighting for the win when we almost got him (VeeKay) in the pit stops. I said, ‘Man, this is the chance,” said Pat O’Ward. “It was so tough to follow because it’s such a fast and flowing circuit. I knew if I had the opportunity, it would have been right then and there. So, I got on my button (push to pass) and got around him (VeeKay) into (turn) five. I knew if we got into clean air, we could kind of control the thing. Once we did that, it was cruise to Victory Lane.”

The rest of the top ten finishers were Alex Palou second, Rinus VeeKay third, Will Power fourth, Scott Dixon fifth, Scott McLaughlin sixth, Romain Grosjean seventh, Graham Rahal eighth, Alexander Rossi ninth, and Colton Herta tenth.

The NTT IndyCar Series races the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 14^th, at 3 pm on NBC. Tickets for the race can be purchased thanks to our friends at StubHub.