Felix Rosenqvist endured a race to forget in Saturday’s GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, losing out in a race-defining caution period to eventually come home in 15th place.
Rosenqvist scored his first career NTT INDYCAR SERIES pole at the IMS road course last year, but was restricted to ninth in qualifying this time around and then dropped further ground to 15th on a poor opening lap.
From there, things simply did not go Rosenqvist’s way on the 4th of July. The Chip Ganassi Racing Swede did haul himself inside the top ten as the race neared half time, but when Oliver Askew crashed his Arrow McLaren SP machine and brought out the safety car, Rosenqvist became the victim of an unfortunately timed pit stop issue that left him at the back of the field.
Rosenqvist’s fortunes were not aided when the restart took place before his group of cars could rejoin the leading pack, effectively placing the NTT DATA-sponsored racer out of contention half a lap behind.
A strong conclusion to the race eventually saw Rosenqvist claw his way back up to 15th by the chequered flag.
“That was simply a race to forget,” says Felix Rosenqvist. “It happens from time to time, but it’s obviously a shame. It started badly on the opening lap where I lost a lot of places, and then we didn’t have the pace on the opening stint to make up for that. Then we stalled on one of the pit stops, so we have to look into that to see why that happened, and basically lost a lap behind the safety car. Not our day.”
Up front, Scott Dixon delivered another victory for Chip Ganassi Racing, making it two out of two so far in 2020.
“The car is clearly very competitive, and congratulations once again to Scott,” Rosenqvist concludes. “We will now sit down and analyze this race, and ensure we are back up there with Scott where we belong. Thankfully there are plenty of races coming up in the very near future, so I’m already looking ahead to next weekend.”
Felix Rosenqvist and the rest of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES fraternity will be back in action in just a week’s time, with a double-header event scheduled in at Road America on July 11-12.
RESULTS
NTT INDYCAR SERIES | Rd. 2
GMR Grand Prix | Indianapolis Motor Speedway
1: Scott Dixon (NZL), Ganassi, 80 laps
2: Graham Rahal (USA), RLL, +19.946s
3: Simon Pagenaud (FRA), Penske, +20.564s
4: Colton Herta (USA), Andretti, +25.088s
5: Rinus VeeKay (NED), ECR, +25.636s
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15: Felix Rosenqvist (SWE), Ganassi, +56.688s
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
NTT INDYCAR SERIES | After 2/14 races
1: Scott Dixon (NZL), Ganassi, 104 p.
2: Simon Pagenaud (FRA), Penske, 75 p.
3: Josef Newgarden (USA), Penske, 64 p.
4: Colton Herta (USA), Andretti, 58 p.
5: Graham Rahal (USA), RLL, 54 p.
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19: Felix Rosenqvist (SWE), Ganassi, 25 p.