Herta makes splash at Indy
California driver wins wild race
As Colton Herta set up his winning pass Saturday in Indianapolis, all he could see were red flashing lights.
He still charged forward.
The22-year-old California driver quickly darted to the inside of Pato O’Ward on a late restart, took the lead for good with nine laps to go and beat Simon Pagenaud to the finish line by 3.0983 seconds to win a wild, wacky, wet IndyCar Grand Prix.
“Pure talent,” Herta joked when asked how he persevered for his first win of the season despite the incredibly challenging weather conditions. “The most interesting thing is you never have a car that handles great in the wet and great in the dry, but it happened today.”
Getting to victory lane certainly wasn’t easy for Herta, who earned his first Indy win in his 10th series start at the track. He also became the first Honda driver to reach victory lane this season.
But on Saturday, he made all the right calls.
After qualifying 14th on the 27-car grid, he made the gutsy choice to switch from rain tires to dry tires just three laps into the race. While he initially struggled to keep the cold tires on the track and nearly spun out on Lap 4 when he got sideways in the 10th turn on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course, Herta never flinched.
Pagenaud, the French driver, gave Meyer Shank Racing its best finish of the season. Will Power took the points lead away from defending series champ Alex Palou and posted Team Penske’s best finish.
Team Penske scrambled to get two-time series champ Josef Newgarden back on the course after his car was damaged in a Lap 17 crash. Power lost three spots on the first lap and never completely recovered and Scott McLaughlin, Penske’s third driver, lost the lead when he spun under caution.
NASCAR
Christopher Bell qualified on the pole for Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway, topping the time set by Tyler Reddick earlier in the session and grabbing his third pole of the NASCAR Cup Series season for Joe Gibbs Racing. Bell turned a lap of 179.575 mph in the first showcase of the Next Gen car at the 1.5-mile oval west of downtown Kansas City, Kan.
That was enough to beat Reddick, who went 178.855 mph for Richard Childress Racing, and add to the poles that Bell won at Las Vegas and Talladega.
Betting favorite Kyle Larson qualified third for Hendrick Motorsports and will start in the second row alongside Austin Cindric, the best of the Team Penske cars.
Kurt Busch made it five different teams in the first five spots for 23XI Racing, while Kyle Busch qualified sixth and Aric Almirola was seventh for Stewart-Haas Racing. Alex Bowman, Martin Truex Jr. and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top 10 on a brutally hot afternoon at Kansas.