Felix Rosenqvist finally received the break needed to get his 2022 season on track, finishing sixth in the GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Road Course.
It proved to be quite the weekend for the 30-year-old Swede, as he extended his Fast Six qualifying appearances to four straight. Rosenqvist and teammate Pato O’Ward had Arrow McLaren SP represented on Row 3, starting fifth and sixth, respectively. By the end of Lap 1, O’Ward charged to the lead while Rosenqvist jumped to fourth before finding the top spot two laps later.
Both drivers were fixtures in the top five until running into trouble moments after a restart on Lap 42. Entering Turn 1, O’Ward pushed for an attempted move on Colton Herta, but ended up spinning around and directly in the path of Rosenqvist.
With nowhere to go, both drivers hit each other with their front noses with no apparent damage to the young Mexican. Rosenqvist had the left side of the front wing loosened on his No. 7 AMSP Chevrolet.
Slick tires and rain do not mix!
Patricio O'Ward goes around and collects his teammate Felix Rosenqvist! #INDYCAR
? : @NBC and @PeacockTV pic.twitter.com/hxIluYfv5D
— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) May 14, 2022
“It was such an unfortune situation,” Rosenqvist said, via Peacock. “So Pato spun, I don’t know if he touched with Herta, but he spun right in front of me. I kind of ran into him and as a result I stalled. I went on my clutch, but the car didn’t go. You can see it here, I have nowhere to go there and boom.
“Yeah, from there on I was like, let’s just be positive. I think everyone did a good job, not to get negative and yeah, it looked dark but we came back to P6. First top 10 of the year, so hopefully more of those.”
Rosenqvist restarted 21st after pitting for repairs. Then, the race was shifted to a two-hour timed event (with 75 of originally scheduled 85 run) due to weather conditions and cautions, as six minutes remained he climbed back into the top 10.
“I don’t know, it was just every stint was something different,” he said. “We were on the wrong tires or right tires, but we were on the right tire in the final stint. We put on the wets and I think we had a very good car in the wet today, I felt fast in the wet all day. We managed to go from 18th to sixth in the last 10 laps so that was crazy. The target was to finish same or better than we started so we got that but it was just about.”
