IndyCar

Herta fends off Newgarden for St Pete IndyCar victory

by Jack Benyon
9 min read

Colton Herta earned his fourth IndyCar Series win in the St Petersburg race, holding off Josef Newgarden a week after Newgarden’s first-lap spin wiped both out of the Barber opener.

Most of the leaders made the predicted two-stop strategy work, but a late caution with just over 20 laps to go bunched up the field and robbed polesitter Herta of his nearly 10 second lead after what had been a spectacularly dominant effort.

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Newgarden – on the softer tyre which came up to temperature quickly but didn’t last as long as the hards – needed to move quickly on Herta, but another caution three laps after the restart chalked more laps off the board.

Andretti Autosport driver Herta conserved his push to pass while holding Newgarden half a second at bay, and into the final 10 laps the more durable harder tyre gave Herta some breathing room.

Having started behind Team Penske driver Newgarden at Barber and been caught up in his crash last week, it was a vital rebound result for both drivers to push them up the standings.

It was also Herta’s first street course win, as he stopped Newgarden from winning three races at this venue in a row.

Colton Herta wins St Petersburg IndyCar 2021

Simon Pagenaud was another driver who had a poor season opener but has been back to form at St Pete for Penske, moving past second-place starter Jack Harvey in the pitstop phase to complete the podium.

Harvey – who didn’t score a top five in a really unlucky year with Meyer Shank Racing in 2020 – struggled on the soft tyre in the first stint which cost him some spots, but still earned a strong result.

Scott Dixon was the highest finisher who also scored a top five at Barber, taking fifth in a typically quiet but effective Dixon race.

Takuma Sato led Marcus Ericsson in sixth and seventh, as they proved to be two the stars of the race having started 15th and 16th respectively. They did their work on the track with some dicey moves through the field.

They were also helped by some drivers pitting earlier on to cover off a caution which never happened, which could have threatened their position but instead handed them spots.

Behind Ericsson, Will Power rebounded from what he called his worst qualifying ever to take eighth on a three stop strategy that required epic pace on track.

Rinus VeeKay was another driver to desperately struggle on the soft tyre early on and did well to take ninth from his sixth place start given his early slip down the order and early first stop.

VeeKay is still driving with a broken finger after the Ed Carpenter Racing driver crashed in Indianapolis testing three weeks ago.

Sebastien Bourdais rounded out the top 10 having qualified fifth, bringing home more valuable points after his Barber top five.

Scott McLaughlin was the top rookie in 11th – although he raced at the venue last year – while Romain Grosjean took 13th from 18th on the grid despite crashing with Power at Turn 10 early in the race and driving with damage throughout. Grosjean still holds a narrow lead over McLaughlin in the rookie standings for now, but will miss next week’s Texas double-header as he is not contesting the oval rounds.

Between McLaughlin and Grosjean was Felix Rosenqvist, who recovered from 17th on the grid to take 12th.

Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP St Petersburg IndyCar 2021

His Arrow McLaren SP team-mate Pato O’Ward turned sixth in qualifying into 19th after he and the team failed to improve his imbalanced car – much to O’Ward’s frustration – and then clashed with Ed Jones, who was already mid-collision with James Hinchcliffe at the time.

Last week’s Barber winner Alex Palou had been just outside the top 10 but pitted at the end of the race after hitting the wall and was classified 17th. That was still enough to keep him in the points lead.

Alexander Rossi was one of the big names missing from the lead fight. He’d worked his way into the top 10 after starting 11th, but then a slow stop and then a crash with Graham Rahal when he came out of the pits – and defended too robustly – put him two laps down.

Rahal recovered to 15th.

Jimmie Johnson’s race was another rollercoaster affair. Despite being some way off the pace in practice and qualifying, his mid-race pace was impressive on the soft tyre.

However, that came after he had crashed at the final hairpin on lap 22 and put himself four laps down.

He also caused the caution with just over 20 laps to go when he spun off Turn 3.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 100 97 1h51m51.411s 1m01.637s 2 54
2 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 100 0 +2.493s 1m01.697s 2 40
3 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 100 1 +6.15s 1m01.65s 2 36
4 Jack Harvey Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 100 0 +8.083s 1m01.906s 2 32
5 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 100 0 +8.95s 1m01.909s 2 30
6 Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 100 0 +11.68s 1m01.901s 2 28
7 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 100 0 +11.939s 1m01.706s 2 26
8 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 100 0 +13.236s 1m01.862s 3 24
9 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 100 0 +13.719s 1m01.971s 2 22
10 Sébastien Bourdais A.J. Foyt Enterprises Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 100 0 +15.995s 1m01.973s 2 20
11 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 100 0 +17.593s 1m01.628s 3 19
12 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 100 0 +18.564s 1m01.94s 3 18
13 Romain Grosjean Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Dallara DW12-Honda 100 0 +22.728s 1m02.213s 3 17
14 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 100 0 +24.128s 1m02.269s 3 16
15 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 100 0 +24.793s 1m02.032s 3 15
16 Conor Daly Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 100 0 +48.16s 1m01.775s 5 14
17 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 99 2 +1 lap 1m01.456s 3 14
18 James Hinchcliffe Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 99 0 +1 lap 1m02.156s 3 12
19 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 99 0 +1 lap 1m01.962s 3 11
20 Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Dallara DW12-Honda 99 0 +1 lap 1m02.302s 5 10
21 Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 98 0 +2 laps 1m02.059s 3 9
22 Jimmie Johnson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 95 0 +5 laps 1m02.719s 3 8
Dalton Kellett A.J. Foyt Enterprises Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 67 0 DNF 1m02.742s 2 7
Max Chilton Carlin Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 18 0 DNF 1m02.988s 2 6

Driver Standings

Pos Driver Team Points R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 R15 R16
1 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing 549 53 14 33 27 36 85 15 35 51 35 26 5 10 52 40 32
2 Josef Newgarden Team Penske 511 7 40 28 41 32 36 20 44 13 54 20 25 53 30 26 42
3 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP 487 34 11 35 51 15 65 37 51 22 24 17 32 41 17 30 5
4 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing 481 35 30 53 35 23 36 25 26 33 32 40 13 11 36 17 36
5 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport 455 8 54 8 30 17 37 16 32 40 18 15 36 13 24 54 53
6 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing 435 24 26 11 18 20 39 51 22 28 41 51 22 22 27 28 5
7 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 389 26 15 30 36 30 11 31 30 19 28 30 26 7 23 32 15
8 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske 383 18 36 20 28 28 71 18 24 12 16 9 15 25 9 24 30
9 Will Power Team Penske 357 41 24 16 18 19 10 13 28 35 5 16 53 37 17 5 20
10 Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport 332 22 9 24 10 26 10 27 17 26 30 13 32 13 40 5 28
11 Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 324 17 28 22 17 14 33 32 18 25 20 5 20 28 18 5 22
12 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing 308 29 22 10 23 51 56 40 12 0 14 6 6 9 13 12 5
13 Jack Harvey Meyer Shank Racing 308 19 32 26 13 7 24 14 11 13 11 15 28 20 33 15 27
14 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske 305 16 19 40 24 24 20 11 10 16 18 8 7 32 23 18 19
15 Romain Grosjean Dale Coyne Racing with RWR 272 20 17 0 0 44 0 8 6 30 26 15 40 16 8 36 6
16 Sébastien Bourdais A.J. Foyt Enterprises 258 31 20 6 11 11 10 19 14 14 19 5 15 31 12 16 24
17 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport 256 6 16 14 20 19 19 9 19 17 6 32 12 26 15 19 7
18 Conor Daly Ed Carpenter Racing 235 14 14 9 6 5 37 17 15 10 15 18 19 19 14 14 9
19 Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan 233 15 10 18 8 16 10 23 13 7 5 28 16 6 20 20 18
20 James Hinchcliffe Andretti Autosport 220 13 12 7 12 12 18 13 16 15 13 35 8 15 5 10 16
21 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP 205 9 18 17 14 13 11 5 0 0 7 24 17 14 28 11 17
22 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing 158 0 0 0 0 0 103 0 0 0 0 22 9 0 7 6 11
23 Dalton Kellett A.J. Foyt Enterprises 148 12 7 12 7 10 14 12 7 5 9 7 5 18 5 7 11
24 Santino Ferrucci Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 146 0 0 0 0 0 57 28 20 0 22 19 0 0 0 0 0
25 Max Chilton Carlin 134 10 6 0 0 0 12 8 8 21 12 12 10 0 11 9 15
26 Jimmie Johnson Chip Ganassi Racing 108 11 8 0 0 6 0 6 9 8 8 5 11 0 10 13 13
27 Ed Carpenter Ed Carpenter Racing 107 0 0 13 20 0 66 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 0
28 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing 96 0 0 19 15 0 45 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 0
29 Oliver Askew Arrow McLaren SP, Ed Carpenter Racing 61 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 19 0 0 0 0 6 22 9
30 Juan Pablo Montoya Arrow McLaren SP 53 0 0 0 0 9 44 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
30 Sage Karam Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 53 0 0 0 0 0 53 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
32 Pietro Fittipaldi Dale Coyne Racing with RWR 34 0 0 15 9 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
33 J. R. Hildebrand A.J. Foyt Enterprises 30 0 0 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
34 Cody Ware Daley Coyne Racing with RWR 26 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 0 10 5 0 0 0 0
35 Marco Andretti Andretti Herta-Haupert w/Marco & Curb-Agajanian 22 0 0 0 0 0 22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
36 Charlie Kimball A.J. Foyt Enterprises 20 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12
37 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 19 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 19 0 0 0 0
38 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 8 5
39 Stefan Wilson Andretti Autosport 10 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
39 Ryan Norman Dale Coyne Racing with RWR 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0
39 Simona De Silvestro Paretta Autosport 10 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
42 Kevin Magnussen Arrow McLaren SP 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
43 RC Enerson Top Gun Racing 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0
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