Quote:
Originally Posted by broadrun96
Rahal and Helio were in effect screwed by a VERY VERY hopeful strategy call, staying out twice with everyone else pitting under yellow was brave or crazy. They both pitted within 5 laps of the yellow for fuel and fell to the rear of the pack. MSR has been trying to play weird fuel strategy games the last couple IMSA and Indy races but they seemed to keep Harvey on the same strategy as the rest of the field and he was rewarded for it.
Appreciated McLaren fixing and getting Pato back out but he couldn't get back up through the field to gain any points. But he did hold on to 3rd by 6 points, if Dixon could have challenged Newgarden he may have lost 3rd too. Not sure how a tied 3rd countback would go
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Rahal didn't lose many positions on the early stop, I think he was 19th when the yellow came out and 2 or 3 cars were already lapped. He got red tires and passed a lot of cars. I think they left him out as long as they could so that he would have the freshest tires at the end. Pretty sure most everyone was on reds at that point and they must have not fallen off as much as expected. Definitely the wrong strategy as Harvey went from 25th at the start to 7th, and Bourdais went from 22nd to 8th. Much harder to justify leaving Helio out as he was much nearer to the front.
Guessing that if there had been several cars retire shortly after Pato came back on track, they could have gained a point or three but that didn't happen. Glad that he held on to 3rd in the championship after a disappointing series of races on the coast.