During the Indy GP, Marcus Ericsson and Colton Herta, who started the race in 21st and 24th places, crashed into each other on the second lap. This chaotic start marked the beginning of the fourth round of the IndyCar Series at Indianapolis’s 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course.
Herta’s qualifying round was messed up when his team didn’t give him enough fuel. This incident pushed him to the back of the pack after he was forced off the track and into the gravel trap because of the collision. Right after, he got on the radio and expressed his anger toward his teammate.
“Your teammate’s leading the championship and you race him like an ass,” Herta angrily told NBC after the race. “I don’t know what you’re thinking. [After watching a replay of the crash] He probably braked deeper than he did in qualifying right there, and he ran me clean off the track. You’ve got to be smarter than that, man. So, so dumb.”
This incident forced Herta into an aggressive strategy of making early pit stops to regain lost time. By doing this, he managed to pass other drivers during the race.
Herta commented on his day, saying, “There’s definitely room for improvement. Really, really solid pit stops and solid strategy. The team definitely made my job a lot easier today. Picking up positions, a lot of it was through the fuel cycles, good pit stops and undercutting a lot of the guys and that’s how we made the majority of our positions up. But I think there was a scenario there where we get a podium.”
Despite the setback, Herta finished in seventh place, only 4.5 seconds behind the winner, Alex Palou, who also became the new points leader for Chip Ganassi Racing.
After the race, Herta now sits in fourth place in the championship standings, with Will Power of Team Penske and Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing ahead of him.
When asked if he would talk to Ericsson about the crash, Herta said, “I’ll probably let him know what I feel, yeah.”
During the race, Race Control penalized Ericsson with a five-place penalty, pushing him back behind Herta.
