LEXINGTON, Ohio. — Second-year driver Colton Herta won his third career race in the NTT IndyCar Series in Race 2 of a doubleheader weekend at Mid-Ohio Sportscar Course.
Herta, like Will Power the day before, won from the pole position, which he secured on a wet race track thanks to early morning thunderstorms that rolled through.
“We’ve been knocking on the door every single week. We’ve had the pace, but it just hadn’t happened for us,” Herta said. “We had a stellar car! Now we just have to be finishing on the podium every weekend.”
Alexander Rossi was second, scoring his second straight podium and his third of the year. Ryan Hunter-Reay was third completing an Andretti Autosport sweep of the podium.
“So huge,” said team owner Michael Andretti.”One, two, three. After things have been going for us this year, this is great!”
With three races left in the season, the run for the championship has gotten a little more interesting with Josef Newgarden shaving 24 points off Scott Dixon’s lead at the conclusion of the weekend.
Newgarden finished eighth. Dixon finished two spots back in 10th for the second straight race. He started third, but spun out not long after a restart from an early caution.
“We really struggled on the starts and restarts,” Dixon said. “I’m so bummed for the team. Such a stupid mistake I made. It should have been an easy points day.”
“We were a little too average today,” Newgarden said. “The caution didn’t work into our favor strategy-wise and we were just stuck there today.”
Dixon said they are not going to drive defensively to maintain their lead moving heading into the Harvest GP weekend in Indianapolis come October.
“Easiest way (to protect the lead) will be to win race one next time out,” said Dixon. “Rebounding from days like this is going to be tough.”
The series heads home to Indianapolis the first weekend of October for the inaugural Indy Harvest GP on the IMS road course.
Dixon won the GMR Grand Prix on that same course back in July.
