The first event of the Month of May was a romp around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
At times the traditional race has been a bit straightforward, but this year’s race was anything but.
After multiple cautions and unexpected events to mix up the order, it was David Malukas ahead of Christian Lundgaard at the head of the field with one pit stop remaining.
READ MORE: IndyCar IMS road course – Full Race Results
Lundgaard blinked first and made his pit stop with 20 laps to go, and Malukas brought his Team Penske machine down one lap later.
Malukas kept the lead on the exchange, but Lundgaard had warmer tires and hounded him over the next lap.
The Dane made a move in Turn 1, then held side by side through the kink on the back straight.
Malukas held tough and the two very nearly touched wheels as the two navigated the high speed chicane without giving an inch.
The young Team Penske driver backed out at the very last second, saving the two from crashing but ensuring that Lundgaard would be the winner on Saturday afternoon.
Lundgaard took his second IndyCar victory, and his first in nearly three years, with a margin of victory of 4.6713 seconds.
He now sits fourth in the points, just 55 points out of the lead.
Malukas crossed the line second, followed by Graham Rahal who earned his second podium in the past three races.
Josef Newgarden was fourth, and was the last of the lead group that completed his race without any outsized issues to battle through.
An eventful race
From the very start, the race around the famous facility’s road course was filled with carnage and excitement.
Diving down into Turn 1, Felix Rosenqvist misjudged his braking zone after starting in third place.
He locked up his tires and slid into the side of Pato O’Ward, who had started in second.
O’Ward spun across the track along with Rosenqvist, with Caio Collet and Scott Dixon joining the pile because they had nowhere to go.
That was the first incident, but it was certainly not the last. A few laps later Alexander Rossi suffered a mechanical failure that he later hinted was related to a hybrid unit issue.
Rossi coasted to a stop off the racing line just past the finish line on the front straight, but race control continued to display a local yellow instead of upgrading to a full course yellow.
After sitting stationary for nearly 90 seconds, Rossi took it upon himself to climb from the car. Race Control had no choice but to throw the full course caution at that point.
At times, IndyCar Race Control has been known to delay a full yellow to allow pit stop cycles to finish. And indeed there leaders were still yet to come in while most others had already pit.
This situation seemed particularly dangerous, however, and Rossi agreed with television commentary when he said he could not understand why it wasn’t a full caution.
There were even more incidents, with Rosenqvist finding trouble a second time as he launched over an already spinning Kyffin Simpson in the final turns. His disappointing day was finally over at that point.
Even more chaos
The exciting times were not over yet, and multiple bouts of drama played out on pit lane.
Pato O’Ward’s attempt to make up for the opening lap chaos was cut short by pit stop troubles that saw him leave the pit box without all four wheels tight. He finished down in 18th.
Kyle Kirkwood and Alex Palou were fighting with each other and attempting to come back through the field, with the two championship leaders battling within their own situation.
Palou had a typically perfect pit stop from his Chip Ganassi Racing crew, but Kirkwood’s stop one lap later was not so clean.
Once again, the Andretti crew had troubles coordinating their efforts and Kirkwood lost multiple positions after being stopped for a full 15 seconds.
Palou went on to finish fifth, maintaining his points lead, while Kirkwood slid down to ninth by time the checkered flag flew.
After an eventful race, drivers will have to put it all behind them as they change mindsets in the build-up to the Indy 500.
Practice begins on Tuesday, with qualifying leading up to the 110th running on the Indianapolis 500 on May 24.
Discussion about this post