The Gallagher Grand Prix turned into another missed opportunity for A.J. Foyt’s team as technical errors and a pit stop miscue put the team on its back foot.
The problems began with Benjamin Pedersen’s No. 55 Sexton Properties Chevrolet which failed to start when the command “Drivers, start your engines” was given on a hot and humid Saturday afternoon at the IMS road course.
As the team tried to figure out where the electrical glitch was, the field rolled off and took the green flag two laps later. By the time Pedersen’s car was sorted, he had lost four laps. It was a tough position to be in, especially because the race was only slowed by one caution period which came in the opening lap of the 85-lapper.
Rookie Marcus Armstrong spun on the first lap after being tagged by his teammate Alex Palou. Romain Grosjean and Josef Newgarden were collected in the Turn 7 melee. The third Ganassi car, driven by Scott Dixon, spun to avoid the carnage and was able to keep going. Grojean and Newgarden continued to race but Newgarden went a lap down after being given a drive-through penalty for taking service in a closed pit.
Being four laps down, Pedersen did his best to use the race for the “seat time” but he was clearly disappointed. He finished 26th.
“Tricky weekend for the team to be honest — with both cars. Couldn’t get the car in the right window to perform as we wanted to unfortunately. For the race today we started four laps down with a technical issue. Not to reminisce on the last GP we had here, but it was the exact same situation, just slightly different. Tricky day because of that technical issue because we had to start a couple laps down before the race even started and tried to do everything we could to get some kind of recovery, but unfortunately that issue prevented us from doing that.”