Pato O’Ward has taken his third win of 2024 in this morning’s opening race at the Milwaukee Mile, holding off a late challenge from Australia’s Will Power.
Second place for Power reduces the gap to championship leader Alex Palou, who finished fifth, to 43 points ahead of the final two races of the campaign.
Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Conor Daly completed the podium in just his fifth IndyCar outing of the season, having started 25th.
Scott McLaughlin, who qualified on pole, led 80 laps of the race but lost out in the pit window. He went on to finish as the best Kiwi in eighth to keep his slim title hopes alive.
He sits fourth in the Driver’s Championship, 92 points behind Palou, who can eliminate the Kiwi from title contention if he scores 18 points in Race 2, regardless of where McLaughlin finishes.
Scott Dixon climbed his way from 20th to finish 10th, while Marcus Armstrong, who qualified seventh but started 16th from a grid penalty for an unapproved engine change, was 21st.
Dixon now sits sixth in the standings, 111 points behind his teammate and out of championship contention.
As it happened
The race’s initial start was waved off, but McLaughlin got away well from the pole on Lap 2 and pulled to an early advantage over Linus Lundqvist.
By lap 40, the Penske #3’s advantage over Lundqvist was 2.6 seconds, but this fluctuated with lapped traffic in the equation.
Lundqvist hit the front at Turn 1 on Lap 49, right before the first round of pit stops, which began with Nolan Siegel coming in on Lap 54.
Once in front, Lundqvist put 4.6 seconds on the field before McLaughlin stopped on Lap 65. The leader followed one tour later, which saw O’Ward hit the front.
Colton Herta took the lead at Turn 3 on Lap 78, five laps before the caution came out when Katherine Legge spun in Turn 2. Legge did well to keep the car out of the wall, took no damage and returned to running, albeit at the rear of the field.
McLaughlin was one of few to remain out under caution, with most of the field stopping for fresh tyres.
The Kiwi led the field to green on Lap 95 and remained there until Lap 99, when O’Ward, who had passed Herta off the restart, took the position with ease on fresher tyres at Turn 1.
O’Ward extended his advantage to 2.62 seconds before McLaughlin stopped under green on Lap 138, and Herta followed two tours later.
O’Ward was one of the last to stop, coming in on Lap 142 and emerging with a 5-second lead over Josef Newgarden, who had stopped 11 laps earlier and undercut several others.
However, Newgarden’s charge was short-lived as he came together with Marcus Ericsson on Lap 147 while battling for second. Ericsson had attempted to take the position on the inside line, but the two made wheel-to-wheel contact and spun into the outside wall. Palou narrowly missed the incident and climbed to second.
O’Ward continued to lead off the Lap 157 restart and remained there until he came in for his final stop on Lap 185.
The race was soon back under caution, however, as Herta lost his left front tyre when he returned to the track, which later cost him a stop-go penalty.
O’Ward returned to the front once the pit cycle was complete and led Santino Ferrucci, who had benefitted from the caution to green on Lap 203.
The McLaren driver remained unheeded up front, holding on to take the victory from Power, who passed Ferrucci with 28 laps to go.
Power reduced the leader’s advantage to just 0.3 seconds with 13 laps to go but was never able to complete a move amongst lapped traffic.
Daly took third off Ferrucci shortly after Power and remained there until the end. Palou briefly took fourth on Lap 225, but Ferrucci wrestled the position back shortly after.
Newgarden will start Race 2 of the Milwaukee Mile from pole ahead of McLaughlin, while Armstrong lines up third. Dixon starts from 17th.
Race 2 begins at 6.30 am NZST and will be shown live on Sky Sport.
Header Image: Penske Entertainment: Joe Skibinski
