Rossi Ends Three-Year Winless Streak With Gallagher GP Win
Calum Gill 20:04 30/07/2022
Alexander Rossi ended a 49-race IndyCar winless streak with victory at the Indianapolis road course, while a podium for Will Power sent him to the championship lead with four rounds remaining.
Felix Rosenqvist was the early pacesetter from pole but Colton Herta and Andretti team-mate Rossi scythed past him in the early stages before committing to a four-stop strategy that mired them in the pack. Power, who had been hit by Herta on the inside and sent into Pato O’Ward, spinning O’Ward around at Turn 2 on the start - fell well outside the top 10, but not for the first time this season he mounted an epic comeback. Having stopped under a very early caution for a Dalton Kellett spin and stall, Power then ran a monster stint and pitted just before a caution came out, and when it did, he stayed out and leapt back up the order to fourth. Soon after that caution Herta monstered the Turn 8 kerb which appeared to damage his car as he couldn’t select a gear. That handed the lead to Rossi ahead of ace rookie Christian Lundgaard and Power.
Rossi lost time with an issue on the right rear but emerged from the last stop still two and a half seconds clear of Lundgaard, and extended that gap through the final stint to give Andretti a second win of the day after Jake Dennis’s London Formula E victory. It also means Rossi wins in the closing stages of his Andretti career before he joins McLaren for 2023, having been with Andretti since 2016 but last won back in June 2019 at Road America before today’s success. Lundgaard - who hasn’t been able to shine perhaps as he should amid Rahal Letterman Lanigan struggles this year - scored the team’s first podium of the season at the track he qualified fourth on for his series debut last year .It’s his best series finish (beating his eighth in Toronto two weeks ago) and was achieved by matching Rossi’s strategy.
Power came under pressure from Penske team-mates Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden in the closing stages but managed to pull a sufficient gap on the last lap. Newgarden can be happy with his top five after not even being sure he’d race after a paddock fall and minor head injury following a crash while leading at Iowa last week due to a suspected broken damper. Ed Carpenter’s Rinus VeeKay took sixth at the track he took a first win at in May last year. He headed Lundgaard’s team-mate Graham Rahal, who complained of struggling for top speed in qualifying but felt more confident after the morning warm-up. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon was furious after a third qualifying of 20th or worse at the Indy road course, but rose from 20th to eighth with a classic sensible Dixon drive through the field.
Rosenqvist spent what felt like more than half the race battling with reigning champion Álex Palou - who reckons he will be part of the McLaren family next year but is being sued by his current team Chip Ganassi - and held Palou off as they finished ninth and 10th. Finishing 11th, erstwhile championship leader Marcus Ericsson ran a brilliant long first stint similar to Power, but pitted under the second caution of the race after pitting only 11 laps earlier, which condemned him to the high teens once more. He lost a spot after those stops but slowly chipped away passing cars to turn 25th in qualifying due to an engine problem into narrowly missing out on a top 10, which keeps his championship hopes alive despite him losing the lead for the first time since before his Indy 500 win. Behind Ericsson, fellow title contender O’Ward recovered from that early spin and a heavy fuel-saving stint to take 12th.
