Honda Maintains Manufacturers’ Point Lead After Tough St. Louis Race
World Wide Technology RacewayA tough race at World Wide Technology Raceway tonight saw three of Honda’s top championship competitors knocked out of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Bommarito Automotive Group 500.
Honda drivers Graham Rahal and Ed Jones were the first pair of cars to go out, colliding on lap two of the event. They were followed not long after by Alex Palou and Scott Dixon, who were both taken out by contact from Rinus VeeKay on Lap 64.
Palou had been the Drivers’ Championship leader going into the race, and Dixon third. The contact dropped them to second and fourth in the standings respectively. Other notable incidents involving Honda drivers included Colton Herta breaking a drive shaft during his final pit stop, and Alexander Rossi making contact with the wall on lap 200.
Romain Grosjean shone brightly during the opening half of the race, making gutsy passes on far more experienced veterans, in his very first oval start. However, an off-sequence pit strategy would cycle him a lap down and he would ultimately finish in the 14th place.
Top Honda honours of the day went to Takuma Sato and Rahal Letterman Lanigan in sixth. The Japanese driver was fighting for a potential podium finish when the #30 had an issue refueling during a pit stop and was required to come down pit road again.
Other top-10 finishers for Honda were: Ryan Hunter-Reay for Andretti Autosport, seventh, Marcus Ericsson for Chip Ganassi Racing, ninth, and Jack Harvey for Meyer Shank Racing, tenth.
After races on three consecutive weekends, the NTT INDYCAR SERIES now takes two weeks off before concluding with a three-race swing to the US West Coast, starting with the Sept. 12 Grand Prix of Portland in Portland, Oregon.
“St. Louis is one of our favorite tracks, we have a really good record here. Today, our qualifying wasn’t great, but we gradually started moving up. Unfortunately, at the last pit stop we had an issue with the refueling hose, so I had to come in again under yellow to top up [the fuel tank]. Without that, I think we would have had a really strong finish, but I think a top six [result] was good for the whole team.”
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t finish the race here tonight. We were running the top 10 early, and I think we were doing a really good job, but we got crashed in Turn One [after contact from Rinus VeeKay] and there was nothing we could do. So, now we just move on to the last three races and keep doing our best for Honda and Chip Ganassi Racing.”
