Alexander Rossi ends a three-year winless streak in Indianapolis

The NTT IndyCar Series was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course for the Gallagher Grand Prix on Saturday afternoon. Arrow McLaren SP driver Felix Rosenqvist started the race on the pole, with Alexander Rossi starting second.

On the opening lap, Colton Herta went inside of Will Power and made contact at turn one. Meanwhile, Will Power hit Pat O’Ward, causing O’Ward to spin at turn two. Two laps later, Dalton Kellett was trying to pass Jimmie Johnson and clipped the curb at turn seven, slightly hitting Johnson and going around. His car stalled, leading to the first caution.

Four laps into the restart, Colton Herta passed Felix Rosenqvist for the lead after starting in ninth place. Rosenqvist lost two more positions and was now in fourth place. The first scheduled pit stops began on the tenth lap. During pit stops, Conor Daly stalled his car exiting his pit box, and his crew had to re-fire the car.

While pit stops were going on, Will Power was the new leader. He had pitted on the fourth lap and led seven laps before making his second stop; thus, the lead went back to Colton Herta. On lap 36, the second caution came out for Simon Pagenaud, who ran out of fuel in turn ten. Pagenaud was the first driver out of the race. Before the caution came out, many drivers took advantage to pit before pit road was closed.

Three laps into the restart, Colton Herta smacked the curb at turn eight, causing electrical damage to the car. Herta was able to get the car to the entrance of pit road. His team pushed him back and attempted to fix the car, but the damage was too severe, and he was the second driver out of the race.

Alexander Rossi was the new leader after Herta’s unfortunate exit. Rossi held a comfortable margin over Christian Lundgaard and led the last 44 laps to end a three-year winless drought (49 races) by 3.5441 seconds over Christian Lundgaard. The last time Rossi won a race was in 2019 at Road America. It’s Rossi’s eighth career win in IndyCar, and he is the eighth different winner this season.

The rest of the top ten finishers were Will Power third, Scott McLaughlin fourth, Josef Newgarden fifth, Rinus VeeKay sixth, Graham Rahal seventh, Scott Dixon eighth, Felix Rosenqvist ninth, and Alex Palou tenth. There were five lead changes and two cautions for five laps. In addition, there was a change in the point standings as Will Power is now nine points ahead of Marcus Ericsson for the championship with four races remaining in the season.

“It’s a relief, man. It’s been so many things for so long,” said Alexander Rossi. “I do feel for Colton (Herta), I do. Thankfully something came our way. I think he was definitely strong. We had pretty much the same race car. It would have been interesting. I don’t want to take away anything from what he did from ninth. To get to that position was incredible. But it was the 27’s turn. That’s awesome.”

“It does for sure,” said Christian Lundgaard. “I think at the end of the third stint, I was catching Alex. I was really hoping because every pit stop, we always caught up. We lost a bit in the beginning of the stint. The Andretti car had just so much better power down than we did today. That’s what killed our rear tires, and we struggled on the long run.”

The NTT IndyCar Series heads to the streets in Nashville, Tennessee, for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix next Sunday at 3 pm on NBC. Tickets for the race can be purchased on StubHub.

Finishing Order: