Polesitter Christian Lundgaard and Arrow McLaren teammate Pato O’Ward had started the 90-lap Honda Indy 200 IndyCar series race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course together on the front row, and they effectively held their positions throughout a caution-free race except when they pitted. But on Lap 42, O’Ward capitalized on the polesitter’s wide exit off Turn 2, swiping the lead and holding it the rest of the way.

The win was the first for O’Ward in nearly a year since he won last season’s Toronto street race. That was 15 races ago, a drought he couldn’t accept, especially as Lundgaard has won two races this year, including the most recent race at Road America. The win also gave Arrow McLaren its first 1-2 finish in this series.

O’Ward hadn’t even scored a top-three finish this season despite being fifth in the standings. His best runs had been three fourth-place finishes and three fifth-place finishes. “It’s been a year, it’s been a tough one for sure,” the Mexican driver said. “I think today is just a perfect example of execution. I waited for the perfect time pounce and from there we just controlled it.”

O’Ward’s pass of Lundgaard was noteworthy for a couple reasons, not the least of which stemming from what happens at year’s end. They are in their second season as teammates, but all signs point to Lundgaard driving elsewhere next year as Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist join O’Ward on the team.

That situation made O’Ward’s pouncing opportunity all the more interesting.

Lundgaard drifted a bit wide on the exit of Turn 2, allowing O’Ward to size him up and get a better run down the long straightaway that serves as the race’s starting point. By the time they arrived at the tricky, right-turning fourth corner, the cars were side by side, O’Ward on the outside. They touched at least twice at corner exit, and O’Ward had the preferred line into Turn 5 – and he used it.

By the time the Arrow McLaren twosome charged into Thunder Valley, O’Ward had the lead. Later, he used a key pass of series rookie Dennis Hauger to create additional separation leading into the final pit stop. O’Ward stayed out as Lundgaard, along with two other challengers pitted, and he then ran two laps longer to pad his lead.

O’Ward’s winning margin was .9877 of a second, earning his second Mid-Ohio victory in the past three years. This win was the 10th of his career, almost divided equally by circuit (four on ovals, three on street circuits, three on road courses).

“It’s been such a strong weekend for all of us at the team, Team Chevy, everybody at Arrow McLaren,” said Pato, “These cars really have been a joy to drive. I think I can speak on behalf of Christian as well. They gave us everything we needed to, to fight for the win today. And we’ve been so close in pace, right? I mean, you start qualifying .02 or something separating us. So, I knew the race was going be tight as well. But I was banking on a mistake just being there that was going to give me the opportunity. I saw and I took advantage of it, and we controlled it from there.

“Back-to-back wins for the team. Now, all three cars in the top 10 in this race as well.  For us at the No. 5 side, it’s been a consistently top five year, but it hasn’t been a consistently good year on the podium. This is our first one, so glad it’s a win, and we’re going to try and go get it in Nashville. I think we’ve got some unfinished business there from last year.”

“It says a lot about how much work we’ve been doing,” said Tony Kanaan, the team principal at Arrow McLaren, “Look at this team three years ago and look at this team now. It’s not the same team. We’ve been changing. We’ve been adding personnel. We’ve been adding a lot of the culture that we’ve been trying to achieve. We’ve been adding the Hunter-Reays and the Kyle Moyers and also working with the drivers with what we need and what they need to be able to perform. There is no excuses when you have a name like McLaren and a boss like Zak.

“I just said, this was our first one-two, and my text to him says, and it won’t be the last, and that’s Zak. Proud of them, proud of the drivers with the distraction and everything that has been going on. I’m trying to be as mindful and as fair as possible using my own experiences. I’ve been through some ups and downs in my career, if I can help them out. But the focus is we always leave is all at the racetrack because at the end of the day the results will speak for themselves.

“As much as you win and you put yourself in a position to do so, I think your life will become easier one way or the other. Proud of them. Proud of Pato. There is a lot of talk, and I’m not going to debate on it, and I think he has me handling that quite well. So is Christian, and then Nolan with his best last four races, he’s stepped it up pretty much every race.”

Lundgaard’s second-place finish continued his strong season on road courses. In addition to winning races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Road America, he also finished second at Barber Motorsports Park. With Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou finishing fifth, Lundgaard drew within 65 points of the series leader.

“I’m just trying to catch my breath, honestly,” said Christian. “That was very long, very tough race. We were very loose. In these conditions when you’re loose, it makes the car a lot heavier to drive. I wasn’t really happy with the rear of the car all race. Congrats to the team for a one-two. He was much stronger in Turn 2 than we were, which is really the passing opportunity. I had nothing in Turn 1. I wasn’t really fast, where I needed to be fast.”

Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood finished third, getting a few points closer to Palou. Their separation is now 56 points, and Kirkwood overtook Team Penske’s David Malukas, who finished eighth, for second place in the standings. “I think that was the most physical race I’ve ever driven, especially with the track being faster than in the previous couple of years,” said Kyle. “Running under green for the entire race gave us no breathers at all. It was hard to even take a drink of water with it being so busy around here. But nonetheless, I’m happy to have driven this Sam’s Club Honda from 10th to 3rd. That’s a good podium finish.

“Big hats off to Honda and the Honda plants out here in Ohio because they gave us the power and fuel economy to do what we needed to make our strategy work. Super thrilled with my day. Big thanks to Andretti Global and the crew—they got us that podium on that last pit stop sequence. The car was phenomenal all weekend.”

Lundgaard also jumped Malukas in points, with O’Ward fifth. The top four drivers are separated by 66 points with seven races remaining, led by the July 19 Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix presented by OnlyBulls at Nashville Superspeedway.

VeeKay scored his second fourth-place finish in the past three races following another such finish last month at World Wide Technology Raceway. “That was a good race,” said Rinus. “We race like we belonged up front. First of all, we had a great test a week ago. We showed pace, but then to really finish it off on a weekend like this. We were fighting for a podium there, unfortunately, got beaten by the No. 27 (Kirkwood) on pitlane. On the final stop, we were right there. Good strategy by the No. 76 crew, and, of course, incredible car, really good pit stops all year round by my guys, so I’m really happy. The JHR boys are incredible. They were incredible this weekend, so it’s a team effort.”

Championship leader Alex Palou finished fifth for the second-consecutive race. The Spaniard has four wins this year as he goes for his fifth NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship. “Tough day for us,” said Alex. “We just didn’t really have the pace to battle up front. But I’m still happy because our strategy was good and everything else went great with our Honda. We were able to move up from P8 to P5. It’s just difficult when you don’t have enough speed to fight for the lead. It felt more like we were surviving out there, so we were just focused on trying to gain as many positions as we could.”

Meyer Shank Racing made the most of a challenging weekend at Mid-Ohio, bringing both cars home cleanly in a rare caution-free race, with Felix Rosenqvist finishing 13th and Marcus Armstrong charging from 24th to 14th.

“We lost some time due to an issue with the fuel probe and we were probably looking at a top ten before that,” noted Felix. “Then we weren’t very good on the reds and had to pit early. So we just sat in 13th the whole race and not much action for ultimately an average day.”

“Biggest mover, but guess that means we qualified poorly,” said Marcus. “Strange weekend. I wish I had an answer as to why we were super fast at Road America and then super not fast here in Mid-Ohio. We did what we could today, passed as many cars as we could, and the team did a great job on pit lane.”

Christian Rasmussen, No. 21 Splenda Chevrolet finished 7th:

“Today was definitely up there as one of the hardest, most physical NTT INDYCAR SERIES races that I’ve done. It was really tough out there, but man, I just drove my heart out at the end. I had no push-to-pass against (David) Malukas, who I think had 60 seconds or something like that. I just knew I couldn’t make any mistakes and had to maximize every single lap, and I did, so I’m very happy with this result. We really turned our weekend around. We struggled in practice, but by qualifying we got our first Fast 6 appearance and executed well in the race.”

David Malukas, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet finished 8th:

“Overall, a really good weekend. We flipped this car three or four times. Back and forth, back and forth to get into a window and the car was there every single time. That race was unfortunate for us. We made some mistakes here and there. This track is all about getting as much time as you can and you slowly go backwards a little bit. Overall, with those mistakes. From the mistakes I made, to the guys, that was probably our worst. To say P8 is our worst, is really awesome. These guys are so bad-ass, and there is so much more to come from this team. We’ll learn these mistakes and go get them at the next one. Thank you to Verizon and thank you to Chevy. Incredible engine this week. Congrats to Pato, for getting Chevy up top.”

Josef Newgarden, No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet finished 9th:

“Great job by my PPG team. The car was great, Team Chevy continues to step it up on the natural terrain circuits. Looking forward to racing at my home track at Nashville Superspeedway.”

Nolan Siegel, No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet finished 10th:

“It was a good day today. We moved forward and made the most of it given where we started. Congrats to the team on the 1-2 for the 5 and the 7, the team’s first 1-2. I’m overall satisfied with our day, and am looking forward to some oval racing next.”

Caio Collet, No. 4 Combitrans Amazonia Chevrolet finished 11th:

“It was a good day overall. The team executed. really good race strategy wise, pitstops I think we did everything well today. Unfortunately, we had an incident with another car that was running a different strategy he was probably a lap behind, and we went off track which probably cost us a top-10 there. But nevertheless, fighting for the top-10 is where you want to be. We did everything right today. Big thanks to Combitrans and Chevrolet for all of their effort this weekend and hopefully we can keep on doing races like that.”

Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 Homes For Our Troops Chevrolet finished 19th:

“Not our day obviously. I think we did a really good job with the race car. It felt relatively competitive. We tried to get off strategy early in hopes for a caution that never came and that ended up being our race. Just unfortunate.”

Alexander Rossi, No. 20 ECR Java House Chevrolet finished 20th:

“Where do I begin? Really, a tough weekend overall. There were some glimmers of goodness, but ultimately, we really didn’t have the pace, and there were no strategy plays we could make to try to move forward in an all-green race. Frustrating day. There’s lots to look over and learn from. Good job to the 21 car, and I look forward to getting back out there in Nashville.”

Sting Ray Robb, No. 77 Juncos Hollinger – Goodheart Chevrolet finished 22nd:

“Frustrating day. I don’t really know what to say, one to forget I guess. Not really anything bad or mistake wise, just lack of execution and p22 is as good as we did. Disappointing weekend after what could have been a Fast 6 qualifying. Had a really good car under us yesterday and I don’t know what happened today, so we’ll look at it and go to Nashville. A track that I like, an oval that I like, hopefully we’ll be towards the front.”

photo courtesy of IndyCar, story compiled from press releases by IndyCar, Chevrolet, Honda, and Meyer/Shank