Pato O’Ward has vowed to be more aggressive next time he finds himself in a similar situation to that in which he crashed out of the Indy 500.
The McLaren IndyCar Team driver led the field at the third restart, with eight laps to go, but was usurped immediately by both Josef Newgarden and Marcus Ericsson.
When he tried to re-pass the latter next time they arrived at Turn 3, O’Ward got squeezed low and spun into the wall.
“I just think I was a little too nice there,” said the Mexican on the NBC telecast which is carried in Australia by Stan Sport, just after exiting the circuit medical centre.
“I just feel so bummed for the team. We had four very fast race cars. Now there’s only two in the race.
“There were seven laps to go. I was going to be going for it.
“Yeah, I was way, way too nice. I’ll make sure he comes with me next time.”
Adding further insult, the stricken #5 Chevrolet was then shunted by Agustin Canapino, who had little to no control of his car given it was already damaged from another incident further back in the pack.
On the late-race restart, this incident with @PatricioOWard and @AgustinCanapino brought out another red flag.#INDYCAR // @IMS pic.twitter.com/SL3Si9dpQJ
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) May 28, 2023
Asked if he felt he needed to make that pass in order to keep touch with Newgarden, O’Ward replied, “Yeah, just like I said, I was way too nice.
“I got onto the apron to give him [Ericsson] room, I got squeezed, and yeah, I won’t forget that one.”
As O’Ward noted, the restart in question arose from a red flag in response to a scary crash for his McLaren team-mate Felix Rosenqvist and Kyle Kirkwood.
Rosenqvist had lost control when Newgarden rounded him up at Turn 1 and hit the wall, before being clipped by Kirkwood.
That caused the #27 Andretti Autosport entry to flip, while one of its wheels flew over the catchfence and hit a road vehicle in a car park.
McLaren’s top finisher would be Alexander Rossi in fifth, while Tony Kanaan signed off from IndyCar with a 16th in the team’s 500-only entry.
O’Ward has dropped to third in the series ahead of next weekend’s (June 2-4, local time) event on the city streets of Detroit.
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