During Sunday’s IndyCar race from Road America, Pato O’Ward suffered an unexpected engine failure with just nine laps remaining.
The early retirement put an end to what was a mediocre weekend for the star driver, but he may not have a future grid penalty to add insult to injury.
According to a Chevy spokesperson, O’Ward’s engine does not appear to be damaged after all. The engine was re-fired in the garage area following the race, and no immediate issues were evident.
The suspicion at this time is that the problem that ended his day was electrical in nature, and that the engine will be able to be used in future races without penalty.
Arrow McLaren SP plans to remove the engine from the chassis and send it to Detroit to go through a full evaluation before making any final decisions.
It is also not known at this time if the problem originated from the team’s end or through a defect in the engine itself, but that answer is high on the list of priorities for the evaluation.
O’Ward was knocking on the door of a top 10 result following an already tough weekend when his engine suddenly lost power heading into turn 12.
He was not able to return to the pits, and finished in the 26th position. The hit to the Mexican driver’s points situation may be the most damaging, as he fell from third to fourth and lost considerable ground to the new leader Marcus Ericsson.
AMSP and Chevrolet have a few weeks to find the issue, as the series enters a two-week break before heading to Mid-Ohio the weekend of July 3.
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