FREEDOM 100 - Herta Sweeps the Month of May with Third Lights Win.
Indianapolis - RIS - May 25, 2018 - Carb Day, traditionally the last practice before the running of the 500 Mile Race. Now it’s an excuse for a party, and Hoosiers know how to party!
The day does feature a one hour practice session for the 33 starters of the Indy 500. It was an incident free run with only one short yellow for a missing camera lens from one of the racers on-board cameras.
The practice was followed by the Freedom 100 Indy Lights race and what a race it was!
We will start with the bad news, there were only eight starters, but that is were the bad news ended.
The good news shows in the stats, 20 lead changes among 5 drivers, and a whopping 119 passes in the race and remember, there were only eight cars. The race was green all the way, and it set a record of 191.422 MPH for the 100 mile distance.
Winning was 18 year-old Colton Herta, son of former Indy car driver, Brian Herta, took the lead on the last lap winning by just two hundredths of a second over Pato O’Ward, with Dalton Kellett in third for the third year in a row. The first five drivers, were all just 0.33 of a second a part.
Winner Colton Herta said, “It was like a kart race not a car race, I was trying to figure out where I wanted to be on the last lap. Now I want to win the 500 next year.” This completes a clean sweep of the month of May for Hurta, he also took the top spot in both the Lights races at the Indy GP earlier in the month. After kissing the bricks after his win, Colton commented, “They taste like bricks, bricks with a little rubber, but they are good.”
Second place Pato O’Ward said of his first oval race, “Wow, on that last lap my car was so far out of line I was pointing at the wall. It was a lot of fun, but something really different.”
Dalton Kellett, “That was a fun race, Dalton and I did make a little contact, but that was incidental.”
Forth place was Santi Urrutia and Aaron Telitz was fifth, all on the lead lap. Davey Hamilton Jr finish one lap down. Victor Franzoni ended up tow laps down with a tire issue.
FREEDOM 100 FINISH
FP | CAR | DRIVER | GAP | BSTSPEED | LAPS | SP | PASSES | |||||
1 | 98 | Colton Herta | 194.088 | 40 | 6 | 25 | ||||||
2 | 27 | Pato O'Ward | 0.0281 | 194.093 | 40 | 2 | 18 | |||||
3 | 28 | Dalton Kellett | 0.1219 | 194.272 | 40 | 1 | 18 | |||||
4 | 5 | Santi Urrutia | 0.0964 | 193.928 | 40 | 5 | 30 | |||||
5 | 48 | Ryan Norman | 0.0839 | 193.989 | 40 | 3 | 13 | |||||
6 | 9 | Aaron Telitz | 0.8119 | 194.653 | 40 | 8 | 2 | |||||
7 | 2 | Davey Hamilton Jr | 1 Lap | 194.656 | 39 | 7 | 0 | |||||
8 | 23 | Victor Franzoni | 2 Laps | 194.066 | 38 | 4 | 13 |
Even with a tiny, tiny, field this race, once again proved this Mazda powered car is ideally suited to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Just maybe this car should be the next Indy car? This was a great race to watch, the youngsters showed a maturity well beyond their ages. It was a clean race with everyone giving room and taking care of each other.
The next Indy Lights Series event will be June 23rd at Road America.