49 races.

That’s how long it’s been since Alexander Rossi last won a race in the NTT IndyCar Series at Road America in 2019. Today, that drought finally came to an end, as Rossi won the Gallagher Grand Prix.

Rossi started the race on the outside of the front row, and was in the right position to take advantage of a heartbreaking engine failure for his teammate Colton Herta, and cruise to victory lane. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing‘s rookie Christian Lundgaard dazzled with his first career podium in second place, and Will Power took the championship lead with his third place finish.

“It’s a relief, man,” Rossi said in victory lane. “It’s been so many things for so long, and I do feel for Colton [Herta], I do, but I’m happy.”

“Thankfully something came our way.”

Felix Rosenqvist led the field to green alongside Rossi, and made it through the first corner clean. His teammate Pato O’Ward, however, spun and stalled after contact with Power who had contact from Herta in the second corner. Josef Newgarden, who was cleared to compete after his scary wreck at Iowa Speedway last week, jumped from sixth to third with a bold move in turn one, jumped from sixth to third.

Caution quickly flew on lap three as Dalton Kellett spun in turn seven, giving some drivers the chance to go off-strategy and make early pit stops. Among those takers were Power and O’Ward, who plummeted outside the top 15 after their incidents on the first lap.

Kellett did not require much cleanup, and the restart came very quickly on lap six. Rossi tried a dive on Rosenqvist into the first corner, but ran wide and slipped to third as his teammate Herta took second and Rosenqvist kept his lead.

Herta’s speed was evident, having raced all the way to second after starting ninth, but it didn’t take long for him to swipe the lead from Rosenqvist, making his move on the inside of turn seven two laps after the restart.

The young American immediately checked out, dominating the next stint even through the pit stop sequence. He finally cycled back to the lead on lap 32 as drivers who were off-strategy finally made their stops. Herta wouldn’t get the chance to enjoy the clean air for long as Simon Pagenaud ran out of fuel on the backstretch on lap 35. Almost the entire field immediately dove for pit lane, and IndyCar officials did not wave the caution flag until lap 37, ensuring everyone had made a pit stop to not give drivers any unfair advantage. Pagenaud was off-track in a safe position, allowing for this to happen.

Herta held the lead through the pit stop sequence and led the field back to green on lap 40. Two laps later, disaster struck the leader for the second race in a row, as engine issues sent him out of the race. Coming through turn eight, Herta hit the curb hard and immediately his engine didn’t sound right. He was unable to reach his pit stall, coming to a halt on the pit entry, but was able to receive a push and avoid bringing out a caution.

This promoted Rossi to the lead and he wouldn’t look back, comfortably beating out Lundgaard with a four-second gap to win his first race in over three years. Lundgaard earned his first career podium finish (and RLLR’s first of the year) with a fantastic drive, and even while off-strategy, Power finished third to take the points lead from Marcus Ericsson.

Behind Power, his Team Penske teammates cleaned up the top five, with Scott McLaughlin finishing fourth and Josef Newgarden fifth.

Rinus Veekay finished sixth, also benefitting from the Pagenaud caution on an alternate strategy, with Graham Rahal putting together another strong weekend for RLLR with his seventh place finish.

Scott Dixon was one of the day’s biggest movers, gaining 12 spots from his twentieth place starting position to finish eighth. His teammate, the aforementioned Ericsson, started dead last after engine problems in qualifying, gained 14 spots to finish in eleventh.

Rosenqvist fell down to fourth not long after he lost the lead to Herta, and wasn’t able to keep up with the frontrunners. However a ninth place finish is still nothing to complain about, his seventh top ten of the season, but the Swede will be left wanting more of what was left on the table.

Defending champion (and biggest story in IndyCar after his lawsuit with Chip Ganassi Racing) Alex Palou put all those distractions aside to finish in tenth place.

While Ericsson played damage control this weekend, Power’s podium gives him the points lead once again, but with five races to go, it’s still anyone’s championship to win. Next weekend, this grueling stretch of five races in four weeks comes to an end with the second Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at the Nashville Street Circuit on 07 August 2022.

Gallagher Grand Prix – Official Results

RANK	CAR NO.	DRIVER	NAT	TEAM	TOTAL TIME
1	27	Alexander Rossi	USA	Andretti Autosport	1:48:39.1825
2	30	Christian Lundgaard (R)	DEN	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	+ 3.5441 sec.
3	12	Will Power	AUS	Team Penske	+ 14.8481 sec.
4	3	Scott McLaughlin	NZL	Team Penske	+ 15.9694 sec.
5	2	Josef Newgarden	USA	Team Penske	+ 18.4253 sec.
6	21	Rinus VeeKay	NED	Ed Carpenter Racing	+ 22.9626 sec.
7	15	Graham Rahal	USA	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	+ 23.3542 sec.
8	9	Scott Dixon	NZL	Chip Ganassi Racing	+ 23.6130 sec.
9	7	Felix Rosenqvist	SWE	Arrow McLaren SP	+ 24.4659 sec.
10	10	Alex Palou	ESP	Chip Ganassi Racing	+ 27.6401 sec.
11	8	Marcus Ericsson	SWE	Chip Ganassi Racing	+ 35.0774 sec.
12	5	Pato O’Ward	MEX	Arrow McLaren SP	+ 43.0641 sec.
13	18	David Malukas (R)	USA	Dale Coyne Racing w/ HMD Motorsports	+ 50.1868 sec.
14	77	Callum Ilott (R)	GBR	Juncos Hollinger Racing	+ 51.9201 sec.
15	51	Takuma Sato	JPN	Dale Coyne Racing w/ Rick Ware Racing	+ 57.1069 sec.
16	28	Romain Grosjean	FRA	Andretti Autosport	+ 59.0527 sec.
17	20	Conor Daly	USA	Ed Carpenter Racing	+ 1:00.1316 sec.
18	29	Devlin DeFrancesco (R)	CAN	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport	+ 1:01.7880 sec.
19	6	Helio Castroneves	BRA	Meyer Shank Racing	+ 1:03.4684 sec.
20	45	Jack Harvey	GBR	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	+ 1:04.5997 sec.
21	4	Dalton Kellett	CAN	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	+ 1 Lap
22	48	Jimmie Johnson	USA	Chip Ganassi Racing	+ 1 Lap
23	14	Kyle Kirkwood (R)	USA	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	+ 1 Lap
24	26	Colton Herta	USA	Andretti Autosport	Mechanical
25	60	Simon Pagenaud	FRA	Meyer Shank Racing	Off Course

(R) – Rookie