USA TODAY International Edition
Ericsson wins IndyCar opener after huge crashes
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Two cars went airborne. Jack Harvey was sent to the hospital “under an abundance of caution.” Helio Castroneves was seen icing his right hand after getting an Xray on his right knee. Race leaders Romain Grosjean and Scott McLaughlin crashed while drag- racing for the lead.
And with under five laps to go, Pato O’Ward suffered a brief loss of power on the front straight, handing the race lead and a wild season- opening win to Marcus Ericsson.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver now has four wins – all in red- flagged races. Sunday’s was his first since his career- altering Indianapolis 500 win last May. His other three have come on street courses ( Detroit and Nashville).
Ericsson survived a day that began with a red flag on lap 1, as nearly a halfdozen cars crashed out in an incident that began with Ericsson’s Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon. The six- time champ and Felix Rosenqvist tapped wheels between Turns 2 and 3, eventually slowing Rosenqvist and sending him into the wall. Behind him, Santino Ferrucci slammed on his brakes but couldn’t avoid running into the back of Castroneves, who then collected Devlin DeFrancesco, Simon Pagenaud, Sting Ray Robb and Benjamin Pedersen. The latter was the final car to enter the fray and barreled into DeFrancesco, sending him airborne.
Nearly 40 laps later, Rinus VeeKay ended up in the tires, collecting Harvey, and Kyle Kirkwood came up from behind and flew over the top of Harvey’s car. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver was later taken to a hospital out of an abundance of caution for further review. Just a few laps later, Colton Herta was pushed into the wall by Will Power, forcing another race- altering caution for a contender.
The pivotal moment came on lap 72 as McLaughlin pulled out of pit lane on cold tires a length ahead of Grosjean, who had pitted the lap before. McLaughlin said he made a mistake by not backing out as the pair neared Turn 4.