Pole position was for Arrow McLaren SP driver Pato O’Ward, who will test for the Formula 1 team of McLaren in December. Rinus ‘Veekay’ van Kalmthout, for whom the Belle Isle Park street circuit is completely new, will start in twelfth place on the red, soft tires.
At the start, Veekay loses one spot to Felix Rosenqvist, but he comes in right after two laps. It’s his way, like many others, to say goodbye to the right before the rest of the race reds. In the subsequent rounds, more and more people follow suit.
At the front is a huge train of cars that don’t have the pace on red tires. It is grist to Veekay’s mill, who can join that train in the midst of the leading group, only to see everyone fall away from him one by one. Due to his early stop, he climbs up to eleventh place after all the first pit stops, but once there, he immediately goes back in for new hard tires. He falls back to sixteenth place.
At the front it is Scott Dixon who shows his muscles on his hard tires from the start. If Veekay has already made two stops, the champion is still on his first stint, as are James Hinchcliffe (hard) and Santino Ferrucci (soft). Shortly after Veekay’s second pit stop, the race is halted. Felix Rosenqvist crashes heavily when throttle sticks in heavy braking zone. When he is freed from his car, the Swede is happily conscious and approachable.
Because you are not allowed to change tires or refuel in IndyCar during a code red, we already see a lot of people coming in during the warm-up laps. That’s pure gain for Veekay, who had pulled out just before the code red. He climbs in one go from P14 to fifth place. At the actual restart, Veekay immediately outwits Simon Pagenaud. A few laps later, Takuma Sato is his next victim and he is halfway through the race on the podium, at times less than a second from race leader Will Power.
In third position he makes his last pit stop, indicating that nothing needs to be changed on his Ed Carpenter Racing car. He falls back to P8, but as he pulls away he runs over one of the wheelguns. The team will be fined. Pit stops remain a thing with that team.
When everyone has made their last stop, Veekay is ‘just’ third again. He has one lap of fresher tires, a fuel advantage and more overtake seconds left. But Will Power and former Formula 1 driver Marcus Ericsson before him are not the least and in the end Veekay just doesn’t manage to hook up. Instead, he has to look in the mirrors, where Sato grows bigger and bigger. Sato makes short work of the Dutchman when Veekay is terribly held up by straggler Dalton Kellett. However, blue flags do not have to be honored in America.
O’Ward also reports under Veekay’s wing, but with six laps to go Romain Grosjean crashes. Again there is a code red. When the race is restarted a few minutes later, Penske can’t get leader Power’s car to start. Veekay thus wins a spot and is again third. The new race leader is then called Ericsson. At the start, Veekay throws his car in turn one right next to and past Sato’s car: P2!
Sato is then seen, but the new pursuer of Veekay is then again called O’Ward. However, he holds the Mexican behind, as he sees Ericsson drive to his first IndyCar win ahead of him. Veekay takes second, O’Ward third. This is how Veekay keeps everyone ahead of him in the championship, moving him up to P4 in the standings. The top ten in Detroit is completed by Sato, Rahal, Ferrucci, Rossi, Dixon, Jones and Newgarden.
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