Of those yet to make a fifth pit stop, Ferrucci blinked first and pitted on lap 169, and there was a fumble as a wheel rolled out of the Foyt No. 14 team’s pitbox. However, he received only a monetary fine and a warning. It was still a slow stop, but he was still in the hunt. He got around Newgarden and then Rosenqvist, but both of them re-passed him, as did Rossi.

Ericsson and Rosenqvist ran in lockstep, while Newgarden and Rossi squabbled over third. Yet O’Ward, who had led the early fifth-stoppers, had worked hard and emerged in third. He wasted little time in passing teammate Rosenqvist, then Ericsson. However, it wasn’t yet for the lead, as Ryan Hunter-Reay and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing led the Juncos Hollinger pair of Ilott and Agustin Canapino, having not yet made their final stop.

Then on lap 186, after Newgarden passed him at Turn 1, Rosenqvist slid up to the wall in the dirty air, smacked it hard, and slid down to the middle of the track. Ferrucci and Rossi swerved to the inside around his stricken teammate, Ferrucci went to the high side to avoid the wreck, but Kirkwood — also on the high side — was far less lucky. His left-rear wheel just clipped the McLaren and was torn off. It cleared the debris fence, yet by some miracle it fired into a gap between grandstands. However, Kirkwood’s car was spun around, flipped up and ground along the barrier, then the track, upside down. Kirkwood, mercifully, was left complaining only of sore knees, while NBC were able report that no one was injured by his errant wheel, damaging only a parked street car.

Hunter-Reay led Ilott and Canapino into the pits, leaving O’Ward heading Ericsson, Newgarden, Rossi, Ferrucci, Palou, Daly, Dixon, VeeKay and Herta for the restart with nine laps to go. However, the restart was waved off as O’Ward was adjudged to have brought the field to the green at too slow a pace.

Now with eight laps left, there were no issues with the start, but O’Ward was still a sitting duck. He clung to the inside wall, but Ericsson drafted alongside him along the front straight to and edged ahead, while Newgarden swept around the pair of them to snatch the lead. On the run down to Turn 3, O’Ward tried outside, then inside Ericsson, and was three-quarters alongside when Ericsson turned in. O’Ward’s left front hit the rumble strip, while his right-front rubbed the Ganassi car’s left rear. That pitched the No. 5 into a spin across the track and into the outside wall, where it lifted its nose but stayed right-side up. After coming to rest, his car was damaged further by Canapino, who was without steering, having been an innocent victim of a crash caused when McLaughlin ran into the back of Pagenaud, spinning the Meyer Shank car out of control.


Ericsson, having completed a great save after the contact with O’Ward, would take the restart as Newgarden’s main challenger, with Ferrucci third after passing Rossi around the outside of Turn 2 on the previous start. In fifth lay Palou ahead of Dixon, Daly, VeeKay, Herta and Sato.

A four-lap shootout never happened. Newgarden didn’t stay alongside the pitwall, and Ericsson filled the gap on the left, while Ferrucci found a gap on the right to slip into second. However, behind them, Christian Lundgaard was knocked into the wall by a wheel-to-wheel battle between Carpenter and Andretti, and the chaos claimed the second Foyt car of rookie Benjamin Pedersen, which also struck the wall and scattered debris along the front straight. Out came the third red flag.

That meant the restart would leave one warm-up lap, and then one racing lap, with Ericsson leading Newgarden, Ferrucci, Rossi.Ericsson sprinted away as the green was called, and he looked to have too much of an edge on Newgarden, who had also dropped his pursuers. But on the run down to Turn 3, Ericsson had no way of defending, and the No. 2 Penske pulled past. Despite cool tires, he held firm on a slightly higher line, kept his momentum through the short chute and up the front straight. He beat Ericsson by 0.0974s, with Ferrucci, Palou and Rossi completing the top five ahead of Dixon, Sato, Daly, Herta and VeeKay.
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Palou made his second stop at the end of lap 60, and Ferrucci joined him on pitlane, as did Dixon who had been running in 21st, and reported to his team that he had no vibration issues with his second set. VeeKay stopped on lap 64, and this time he emerged ahead of Palou, who was being chased by Ferrucci, but they were both jumped by Rosenqvist who stopped two laps later.

However, O’Ward was flying and passed not only Palou and VeeKay but on lap 70, his teammate Rosenqvist too, as the pair ran behind RC Enerson of debutant team Abel Motorsports, running not quite a lap down. The McLaren drivers seemed happy to be up front, but still able to briefly save fuel behind Enerson. Further back, the No. 2 Penske crew had jumped Newgarden ahead of Ericsson in the pit stop exchange, while just outside the top 10, local hero Conor Daly was up to 11th for Ed Carpenter Racing.

Palou lost fourth to Ferrucci on lap 76, but still the top nine were blanketed by only four seconds, while Sato’s loose car had fallen to 2.5s off the back of Ericsson.

Rosenqvist drafted past O’Ward to lead on lap 79, the pair of them planning to swap back and forth to take turns at saving fuel now that Enerson had pitted for a third time. He would retire on lap 76. However, there was no guarantee that they’d get to pick and choose when to pass, since as O’Ward took over from Rosenqvist at the front, Ferrucci passed VeeKay for third.

As Rosenqvist took the lead on lap 91 and Rossi passed Palou, Sato suddenly slowed, forcing Scott McLaughlin’s Penske and Kanaan’s McLaren to take evasive action, Kanaan putting all four wheels in the grass out of Turn 2 to pass McLaughlin. Much further back, Rahal unlapped himself from Sting Ray Robb, but the Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda tried to hang on around the outside, hit some marbles and slid up the track into the wall. That was the first caution of the race.The leaders hit pitlane at the end of lap 94, but on emerging from his pitbox, VeeKay had to tighten his steering as there were cars already in the outside lane, namely Power and Newgarden. VeeKay got sideways and slapped Palou into the left-side wall as the polesitter was accelerating hard out of his pitbox.
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