Andretti Global had a difficult day at the Sonsio Grand Prix of Indianapolis on the IMS road course on Saturday.
Colton Herta had a mechanical issue early in the race and went a lap down but managed to get back on the lead lap before ultimately retiring from the race.
For Marcus Ericsson in the No.28 Fresh Connect Central Honda he also suffered a retirement.
Kyle Kirkwood scored an eighth place finish and speaking following the action, Andretti Global COO Rob Edwards said:
“The No. 27 PreFab team executed their strategy really well today. It was unfortunate that the yellow at the end came when they were on the prime tire, as they were certainly vulnerable on the restart there. Overall, great execution from that team. The No. 26’s race was compromised, obviously, at the start when he got the nose taken off. Good execution from everyone to get back on the lead lap after that, but then we just kind of smoked the tires on the third stint doing that. So, we were essentially soldiering to the finish and then ultimately had a mechanical issue. Lastly, we’re still trying to get to the bottom of what happened with the No. 28, but it was clearly a short day for them. Right now, we have a good opportunity to re-center as we go into 500 race prep. It’s certainly important for the whole team to focus on the positives from the last two days and use that as a platform for the rest of the month.
Colton Herta in the No.26 Gainbridge Honda said:
Not the day we were hoping for today at the Sonsio Grand Prix. We started out strong, but after going a lap down from the contact on the second lap, we just never fully recovered. We were obviously hoping to go into the rest of the month with a better result, but unfortunately, that just wasn’t in the cards for us. We’ll just shift our focus to the 500 and move forward from here.”
Marcus Ericsson said:
We don’t really know what happened there with the car. We just ran into some issues, and that was kind of it for us. So, we just need to try and figure out exactly what happened there and why it took us out of the race. Obviously, I didn’t want to end the day this way, but we’ll just have to go forward from here.”
Kyle Kirkwood in the No.27 PreFab Honda said:
“I really didn’t do much, if I’m being honest. The team gave me a fast race car. We didn’t get out during Warm Up, so we were a bit blind as to what car we actually had, but Bryan Herta is a magician at strategy, and he played our cards right. He put us on the right tires when we needed to be, and we made a lot of passes in pit lane on strategy because of it. Fortunately, he called that race, or else we probably wouldn’t have moved that far forward. So, I’m thankful to this team. They did a really good job this weekend. We had a lot of hiccups, a lot of mishaps, some of them induced by me, and we bounced back big in the race. For tires, it probably hurt us starting from the back because the Reds were actually retired to run, and we had a plethora of them, whereas the guys in the front did not. So, we had to mix some things up.”
Next up for Andretti Global is the opening day of practice for the Greatest Spectacle In Racing.