Herta Converts Pole To Victory At Laguna Seca
Calum Gill 22:43 19/09/2021
Colton Herta converted pole position into a second win of 2021 at Laguna Seca, as Álex Palou further extended his advantage at the top of the standings heading into next weekend's finale.
Herta, who won the last IndyCar race to be held at the Californian circuit in 2019, held the advantage over Andretti teammate Alexander Rossi heading into the first braking zone. Most of the field made it through the first few corners unscathed, however both of the Arrow McLaren SP cars had some difficulties. First, Pato O'Ward had quite a big oversteer on the exit, which allowed Ganassi's Scott Dixon to sneek past the Mexican title hopeful. O'Ward's teammate Felix Rosenqvist was then turned around on the exit of turn 3 whilst fighting in the middle of the pack.
Rossi, winless since June 2019, attacked Herta for the lead on the second lap at turn 5, which resulted in Rossi spinning off after touching with Herta as the pair accelerated up the hill. A short caution period followed, where Herta maintained the lead off the restart. Penske's Will Power - who was running in second - dropped out of contention on lap 10 when a problem hit his Chevrolet engine, dropping the Australian down to 27th. This left Herta and Palou as the two main protagonists out front, as a vast array of pit strategies played out.
Palou pitted earlier in the first two stops of the race and after the second he reeled in Herta, who caught traffic. Not long before the final stops though, Herta put backmarker Rosenqvist between himself and Palou, giving him the cushion he needed. Following race-long pressure from Palou, Herta emerged from the final stops over four seconds clear after the gap had been as low as six tenths in the traffic. Despite also hitting a rabbit in the closing stages, Herta repeated the feat of winning two consecutive race wins at the track that his father Bryan managed in 1998/99, and the 21-year-old also passed Bryan’s win total with today’s result - his fifth IndyCar triumph.
The result also secured Honda its 10th IndyCar manufacturers’ title. While in traffic before the last round of stops, O’Ward eroded the margin to Palou from over 22 seconds to just over 14 seconds, but in the last round of stops O’Ward was crucially jumped by Graham Rahal. However, the action wasn’t done there as a spectacular Grosjean charged with inventive and bold overtaking moves to put himself in contention. The Dale Coyne Racing driver scythed through the field early on and made two significant passes at the Corkscrew, one that might be the overtake of the season in a late dive past six-time champion Dixon. He stayed out five or six laps later than the majority of his rivals in the final round of stops and absolutely flew in the last stint on the softer red tyres. He passed Simon Pagenaud, Marcus Ericsson, O’Ward and Rahal to storm to a podium.
The standout move was on O’Ward around the outside of Turn 4. Grosjean wasn’t done there though as he proceeded to reduce an 11 seconds gap to Palou to under four, but with three laps to go Palou stepped up his pace and Grosjean’s tailed off after moving through traffic and smashing into the side of Jimmie Johnson’s car at the Corkscrew trying to overtake him, so Grosjean took the final podium spot ahead of Rahal and O’Ward rounded out the top five. Ericsson - who, along with teammate Dixon, has dropped out of championship contention - held on to sixth, with a dip into the gravel on pit exit on the last stop proving crucial, ahead of Josef Newgarden. After qualifying only 17th Newgarden pitted extremely early and tried to use an undercut strategy to put himself in with a chance of keeping his title hopes alive, but the lack of a caution and a struggle to keep the rapidly-degrading tyres alive meant seventh place after late overtakes on Simon Pagenaud and Oliver Askew. That at least kept Newgarden in long-shot contention, 48 points down on Palou with 54 available.
Ed Jones rounded out the top 10. He had followed Grosjean’s strategy until the last stop but pitted earlier. Dixon finished 12th in an eventful race. He fell down the order around the first stops and struggled on the harder tyre, and then later in the race he was hit in an amateurish move from Takuma Sato. Sato spun at the Corkscrew then despite Dixon being in sight managed to reverse into Dixon as the Ganassi car tried to dodge around him. Johnson was another star of the race as for the second week in a row he delivered his most competitive IndyCar performance yet, passing the likes of Max Chilton on track and delivered a best finish of 17th. It feels like a truly symbolic race for Johnson on the weekend he turned 46.
2021 Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey classification (USA Unless Stated) (95 Laps)
1st. Colton Herta
2nd. Álex Palou (ESP)
3rd. Romain Grosjean (FRA)
4th. Graham Rahal
5th. Patricio O'Ward (MEX)
6th. Marcus Ericsson (SWE)
7th. Josef Newgarden
8th. Simon Pagenaud (FRA)
9th. Oliver Askew
10th. Ed Jones (UAE)
11th. Ryan Hunter-Reay
12th. Scott McLaughlin (NZ)
13th. Scott Dixon (NZ)
14th. Sébastian Bourdais (SUI)
15th. Jack Harvey (GBR)
16th. Conor Daly
17th. Jimmie Johnson
18th. Rinus Veekay (NED)
19th. Felix Rosenqvist (SWE)
20th. James Hinchcliffe (CAN)
21st. Max Chilton (GBR)
22nd. Callum Ilott (GBR)
23rd. Dalton Kellett (CAN)
24th. Helio Castroneves (BRA)
25th. Alexander Rossi
26th. Will Power (AUS)
DNF: Takuma Sato (JPN) (Lap 84)
