RACE REPORT: Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio

“Overall, I’m happy with how it went today. That was a tough day right there and a real challenge to be pushing so hard to stay up there in the fight on that three-stop strategy that we thought was going to be best. The No. 26 Gainbridge Honda was really fast and I was able to do whatever I asked of it, so we’ll take the positives and look towards the next one in a week.”

• Making his second-best start at Mid-Ohio, Kyle Kirkwood took the green flag for his fourth start on the historic Ohio road course.
• Despite dropping to two spots to ninth during the opening lap of the race before the first of only two yellows in the race came out, Kirkwood stayed focused through the early shuffle before making his first pit stop on Lap 14.
• Kirkwood remained mid-pack before steadily climbing back into the top 12 by Lap 29.
• By Lap 63, Kirkwood had worked his way up to sixth before making his final stop. Unfortunately, fuel strategy limited his ability to move forward, and Kirkwood ultimately finished the 90-lap race in eighth. 
• Today’s result marks Kirkwood’s second top-10 finish at Mid-Ohio and the 29th top 10 of his career.

“Overall, a decent day for us here in Mid-Ohio. We potentially could have finished a little bit better than that, as it felt like we had sixth kind of right within our grasp, but we couldn’t make it happen. You can’t be too upset to finish one spot further back than where we started after a race that threw everything at us. We’ll look into everything to see where we can improve before moving on to an oval next week, where we’ll try to capitalize there. But overall, a reasonable day at Mid-Ohio for the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda.”

• Despite qualifying 11th yesterday, Marcus Ericsson took today’s green flag from 10th for his eighth start at Mid-Ohio following a grid penalty issued to the No. 21 car.
• With a yellow on the opening lap, Ericsson held his starting position before moving the No. 28 FOX INDYCAR up to ninth by Lap 14 and pitting just four laps later for his first of three pit stops.
• Running a three-stop strategy, the Swede climbed as high as ninth, but like his teammate Kirkwood, fuel strategy ultimately cost the No. 28 valuable lap time.
• Eicsson remained steadily just outside of the top 10, and would ultimately take the checkered flag in 12th.
• With a top-12 result, today’s finish moved Ericsson up one spot in the INDYCAR Championship standings.

“Today was a decent race but a bit of a disappointing result, I would say. I think the team did a good job with the car, which felt good, and also with the pit stops. Somehow, we just didn’t get the finish that we should have gotten. We’ve been fast all weekend, and it felt like we had a car good enough for a top-five finish this weekend, so it feels disappointing to finish 12th. We’ll try to build on the result as we head to Iowa next weekend and get after it there.”

“We’ve just finished up here in Mid-Ohio with all three cars in the top 12, which is good. For Colton we’ve had a couple of races where we haven’t gotten the results, so it’s good to get a top five, but still disappointing not to get more. With the No. 27 and No. 28, we brought them in with about 30 laps to go and tried to get them home on just one more stop, but fuel mileage cost them quite a bit of lap time. Similarly, with the No. 26, we were looking at trying to get home on one more stop, too, but in reality, it didn’t seem wise to put all our eggs in one basket as a team.”