Pato O’Ward channelled his Saturday frustrations at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course into an eighth place finish in Sunday’s Indy 200.
O’Ward spun in the first round of knockout qualifying ahead of the ninth round of the 2023 IndyCar Series season, putting the 2022 Mid-Ohio polesitter down in 25th spot on the 27-car grid.
The #5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet’s only chance of moving through the field was to use a three-stop strategy and hope for a mid-race full course yellow to assist him in moving through the field. After the four-lap yellow period for the first lap collision between Marcus Ericsson and Felix Rosenqvist, there were no mid-race cautions to aid O’Ward.
A lighter fuel load did aid O’Ward, however, as he moved from 23rd to 14th in the span of nine laps. That lighter fuel load meant that the first pit stop would come early and it did on Lap 17, just after an unsuccessful overtaking attempt for 13th on Josef Newgarden at The Keyhole.
O’Ward cycled out in 25th place again after a short fuel stop while others had to stay in the pits longer to take on a full tank of fuel. That quick stop plus a series of fast laps while the rest of the field made their first pit stops meant that O’Ward cycled out in fourth place.
The second pit stop on Lap 43 dropped the 2018 Indy NXT champion down to 14th. O’Ward moved up to second before his final pit stop on Lap 64 dropped him to eighth, which temporarily became ninth as team-mate Alexander Rossi overtook O’Ward who was still on cold tyres.
O’Ward returned the favor on the Californian, taking eighth place with 13 laps to go as Rossi got held up behind the lapped car of Benjamin Pedersen. After spending a lap behind Pedersen, O’Ward got by the #55 Chevrolet and set off after the front-runners.
After getting by Pedersen, O’Ward was over seven seconds behind seventh place Graham Rahal. Over the next 11-and-a-half laps, O’Ward closed within a second of Rahal and a second and a half of David Malukas in sixth place but could not advance further.
“I drove the living piss out of that car,” O’Ward said.
“It was fast, I was comfortable in it. We were making moves pretty much as soon as we got to anybody. And we just went through the field.
“We didn’t have help from anyone. No lappers, no yellows, no nothing. So we legit went through what, 17 cars? Yeah, and a lot of them were on track.”
Alex Palou crossed the finish line first with O’Ward 28-and-a-half seconds in arrears.
While there was a sense of satisfaction for how O’Ward was able to climb through the field, there was a sense of frustration, too.
After being fastest in Friday’s practice session and fourth in Saturday morning practice, to qualify 25th with a car that fast made O’Ward’s job that much more difficult.
“I’m super pleased with how we made our way back up, but obviously it’s what could it have been if we would’ve started up front,” O’Ward said.
“I think we were the only ones that could have given Palou a run for his money because, um, I don’t think he was faster than us.
“We were pretty much on the same pace, sadly. We just started the race over 20 seconds behind!”
There are merits to O’Ward’s claim as his fastest lap was just over three tenths of a second faster than Palou’s quickest lap.
However, starting fourth gave Palou a much larger advantage over the Mexican racer whose fate was pretty much decided by a spin on Saturday afternoon.
O’Ward’s result places him fifth in IndyCar points, 127 points behind Palou.
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