ANDRETTI STILL SEARCHING FOR A BREAKTHROUGH

For the second event in succession, Andretti Autosport’s failure to capitalise on potential race-winning pace appeared to seep into its drivers’ consciousness, prompting them into error. The regularly frustrated Alexander Rossi suffered a nasty shunt in second practice and, while he became the only AA driver to make the Firestone Fast Six and ran fourth in the second stint, one slow stop and a loss of pace in the final stint caused him to fall to ninth. Colton Herta’s failure to make a three-stop strategy work was not his fault, but his failure to salvage a top-five finish certainly was thanks to an overly bold passive move.

Romain Grosjean (left) appeared comparably fast in practice and the race, but lost time to fellow threestoppers Josef Newgarden and Herta in the second stint when he ran primary tyres and they switched to alternates. In the third stint,

Herta zapped Newgarden on the lap 35 restart, but Grosjean spent a frustrating 20 laps behind the slower Penske car. Once past, he swiftly muscled his way up to eighth. With four laps to go, Grosjean dived down the inside of

Graham Rahal at Turn 5, but the RLL driver carried more speed through the turn and, when Grosjean realised his pass had failed and the pair exited onto the long drag down to Turn 7, the Andretti driver’s right-front wheel twice made hard contact with Rahal’s sidepod.

At best, it was a silly attempt at intimidation, at worst it appeared Grosjean was trying to nerf his rival onto the grass; either way, it stank of petulance. So, when Rahal had to coast the final lap, low on fuel, and ceded seventh to Grosjean, few objective observers rejoiced.