IndyCar Barber: OWard charges to victory ahead of Palou

After polesitter Rinus VeeKay controlled the opening two-thirds of the race, the Barber races came working on the final round of pitstops as VeeKay, O’Ward, Scott McLaughlin and Will Power pulled in together.

VeeKay just got out superiority of O’Ward, without the Arrow McLaren SP suburbanite delivered a unconfined in-lap and his hairdo produced a perfect pitstop, and on the out-lap VeeKay flicked to the left to defend the inside and O’Ward crush virtually the outside at Turn 5 to requirement the net lead.

The final frontrunner to stop – two laps without O’Ward and VeeKay – was Palou, and between a sunny in-lap and well executed stop from the Chip Ganassi #10 crew, the reigning champion emerged between them to requirement second.

With fresher tyres Palou sealed the gap to O’Ward to virtually 1s, but then the Mexican suburbanite started edging yonder then with some personal weightier laps.

Running two seconds untied in the final 10 laps, both pushed nonflexible and had dropped VeeKay, while remoter when on lap 86 Graham Rahal and Romain Grosjean made contact twice on the exit of Turn 5.

Up front, O’Ward had wisely conserved his push to pass and therefore fuel, and was only let off the troika on the final lap. He had executed perfectly and rolled home the winner, by one second, superiority of last year’s winner Palou.

VeeKay was a remoter 11.5s behind, turning in his quickest lap of the race without permitting Power to get within two seconds. VeeKay personal the final podium spot by 2.7s superiority of the Penske driver.

Power was still worldly-wise to pull off a remarkable tuition through the field having started in 19th place to finish as lead Penske driver, with Scott Dixon worldly-wise to produce a similar surge, having been knocked out of the first stage of qualifying, profiting on strategy to take fifth place for Chip Ganassi Racing.

McLaughlin struggled for race pace and a skip wideness the grass fighting for position with Dixon lost him a position and dropped him to sixth place at the finish.

Andretti’s Grosjean snatched seventh place off Rahal on the final lap as the American suburbanite ran low on fuel, as Alexander Rossi’s low-key performance saw him fade to ninth place.

Colton Herta finished where he started in 10th place for Andretti but his own whittle through the pack was stunted when he clipped wheels with McLaughlin and spun off trying to overtake up the inside at Turn 5.

IndyCar rookie Callum Ilott saw his chances of an impressive result disappear when he spun off midway through the race, having battled Meyer Shank Racing’s Helio Castroneves at Turn 8 only to outbrake himself and spin into the gravel at Turn 9. The British suburbanite ended the race in 25th and two laps down.

Palou has now taken the lead of the IndyCar championship superiority of McLaughlin, Newgarden and Power.