With VeeKay and Daly having stayed out front after their late stops, Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet had a 1-2 – VeeKay on reds, Daly on blacks – ahead of Dixon, Herta, Rosenqvist, McLaughlin, Rahal, Pagenaud, Ericsson and Palou.
The drivers wended their way into the tortuous pitlane, and Newgarden suffered a horrible stop as he stopped too far from his crew, and the refueler struggled to get the nozzle engaged nad Newgarden was down to 11 th. Race Control would say the attempt was legit and so there was no penalty for the AMSP driver. At Turn 3, the AMSP driver flicked to the inside of the future AMSP driver, and he was fully alongside as they exited the turn but as Rosenqvist floored the throttle his car slid sideways and the contact sent the Andretti car hard into the wall. That dispute ended in tears on Lap 45, just as Rosenqvist was encouraged by his strategist to make the pass. Further back, Power was only 19 th, and not even threatening the Andretti cars of DeFrancesco and Grosjean ahead. Rahal finally pitted from the lead on Lap 25, emerging in 14 th which would become 10 th once his fellow long runners stopped.
However, Dixon wasn’t yet in the lead, for Graham Rahal, Rinus VeeKay, Pato O’Ward, Jimmie Johnson and Conor Daly had risked running a long first stint on their primaries to try and make a net gain. Behind them, Newgarden and now Rossi were ahead of Malukas, while Rosenqvist had turned in fast enough laps at the end of his stint to emerge ahead of McLaughlin and hold off the Penske driver. Herta and McLaughlin stopped on Lap 19, a lap after Dixon and found himself being outbraked by the six-time champion into Turn 1, to effectively take the lead. To avoid the risk of getting jumped should a yellow fall, the leaders rapidly started pulling in, Newgarden remaining ahead of Rossi but now split by rookie Malukas.
Defending champion Alex Palou, who had started 22 nd, had pitted a couple of laps earlier to take on primaries and such had been his pace, the undercut ensured Power emerged behind him. Following the Lap 4 restart Felix Rosenqvist demoted Malukas down to seventh, while Power had already taken advantage of his alternate tires to move into 12 th, from 16 th on the grid, but rather than burn up all his push to pass trying to stay ahead of Romain Grosjean who he’d passed on the opening lap, he let the Frenchman back past on Lap 11 and pitted next time by to grab primaries.
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