INDIANAPOLIS — It was two laps to go to determine the winner of the 106th Indianapolis 500 and Pato O’Ward was second behind leader Marcus Ericsson.
Typically, that’s a great place for a restart as the second-place car is able to dive behind the leader, build up momentum in the draft and then slingshot into the lead on the frontstretch.
Ericsson, however, knew that if he zig-zagged down the track, it would prevent O’Ward’s Chevrolet from catching the draft.
The maneuver worked perfectly, but at the start of the final lap, O’Ward went to the outside of Ericsson’s Honda. Side-by-side going into turn one, Ericsson refused to lift.
O’Ward, a popular 23-year-old from Monterrey, Mexico, knew he had to lift or crash and he chose to lift.
Ericsson completed the final lap as the leader and won his first Indianapolis 500.
“I had a really, really good run on him,” O’Ward explained. “The weaving was a lot more aggressive than what it usually is. Last year, I was in Tony Kanaan’s spot looking at Alex Palou and Helio Castroneves. They were a lot more gentle with it.
“Marcus, I don’t want to say something that maybe I don’t remember correctly, but I think he went right into where the pit lane is. He went through the pit commitment line, which — I don’t know. That’s their job, that’s not my job. I was just trying to follow and trying to get a tow.
“It was definitely a lot more aggressive than what I thought.”
Typically, it’s O’Ward with the aggressive move but in Sunday’s 106th Indianapolis 500, it was Ericsson who used aggression to his advantage.
“It was too fast in the straight, maybe if I would have timed it a little bit better,” O’Ward reflected. “I really don’t think I could have done it much better. I did enough to what we had been doing all race.
“At the end, I was surprised with how much more pace they had in a straight line with quite a bit more downforce. I was just trying to time it as good as possible.
“Obviously, the weaving helped him. Staying on the inside helped him. I got alongside him, but we all know how that ends up in the last lap.
“No way he would have backed off.”
At 23, O’Ward nearly won his first Indianapolis 500. Two days earlier, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown announced that O’Ward had been signed to a contract extension where he will remain with the Arrow McLaren SP IndyCar team and will serve as a McLaren F1 test driver.
Both O’Ward and his full-time teammate Felix Rosenqvist had great races in the Indy 500. Rosenqvist finished fourth. The team’s third driver, two-time Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya, finished 11th.
It was a fantastic effort for the team.
“They did a phenomenal job,” O’Ward said. “They gave me such a good car. The way that we worked all month, just getting comfortable with it, knowing that there’s that little part of you has to be a little bit uncomfortable for the thing to do good in traffic, which is what you need. Most of the race usually is in traffic.
“I was so happy with it. I was super, super happy with it, better than what I was last year. Yeah, I’m so proud with what the team gave me. I’m sure Felix is, as well.”
In 2020, O’Ward finished sixth. He was fourth at Indy in 2021 and second on Sunday.
“Every year not really doing much different,” O’Ward said. “Just knowing a little bit more of how this race usually unfolds and how much to give in certain parts of the race.
“It’s such a such a long race. We positioned ourselves to really open our strategy windows.”
Second place is typically a very good finish in a race, but when it’s second place in the Indianapolis 500, the accomplishment is often overshadowed by the disappointment.
That is why O’Ward felt strange mixed emotions.
“Does it suck to be second? Well, I definitely know we didn’t suck,” he said. “I think it’s a great result for all of us, a great result for our championship.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow whenever the team does everything correctly in such a hard month to achieve something like this. We’ve been working for this not just all month but the whole off-season. They gave me a car that was fantastic. Felix had the same. I’m not sure where Juan Pablo was. I don’t know where he was at in terms of happiness.
“They gave us all really, really good cars. It’s also up to us to see how much can we be comfortable with in order to make it go as fast as possible?
“My car, the 5 group, was the riskiest of them all because I wanted to win this freaking race. We trimmed out like anybody else in the grid, at least like any other top 10 car. It’s just frustrating when not even that is enough.
“We’ve got work to do,” O’Ward said. “We need to get on with working right now. This is when it starts. We need to come back next year with something that’s better because it’s not good enough.”