Pato O’Ward got to drive to the checkered flag in first place for the first time since 2022 by winning Sunday’s (July 7) Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio after a hair-raising duel to the finish with Alex Palou.
The win is O’Ward’s second of 2024 after he was awarded the victory for the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg when Josef Newgarden’s win in the event was invalidated. On Sunday, however, O’Ward got to earn his honors on track and had to go toe-to-toe with the NTT IndyCar Series’ most dominant driver to do so.
“That was a hard-fought race,” O’Ward said after exiting his car. “We were really, really strong on the [Firestone] Reds, Palou was really, really strong on the Blacks, so all I needed to do was stay up ahead in the first stint and then come into the pits, put those reds on, try and close the gap and then get him in the pits or on track.
“Great job by the team! It’s been a while. I know we won St. Pete, but this is a proper win. We earned this one this weekend.”
The race looked to be in Palou’s hands until lap 55 when the No. 10 driver made his final stop of the day. Up to that point Palou had been in control after starting from pole and leading all but two of the first 55 laps. The gap between Palou and O’Ward, who ran second for most of the race’s first half, exceeded five seconds at times but O’Ward eventually began to reel the Spaniard in as the laps ticked off. O’Ward’s pace advantage began to materialize when he took on a pair of the faster but less durable Firestone Alternate (Red) tires on lap 28.
Palou, less comfortable on the Reds, maintained his composure even as O’Ward grew larger in the mirrors of the No. 10 Ridgeline Honda. The Spaniard looked much less comfortable on Alternates than he had been on the harder, more durable Firestone Primary (Black) tires.
Palou’s team called him in one lap after O’Ward who had pitted on lap 54. The pit stop for the No. 10 team wasn’t egregious, but a fumble by the driver when exiting the pit box proved enough to knock Palou out of the lead. O’Ward had been floating around one second behind Palou before the pit cycle and that was all Palou needed to cost himself in the pits to drop down to second place on the track.
Still, the defending champion wasn’t out for the count and was able to claw back to O’Ward, who was held up behind Kyffin Simpson and Agustin Canapino who were both on the lead lap and therefore not obliged to make way for the leaders.
Despite Palou’s best efforts in chasing O’Ward all the way to the checkered flag, the Mexican driver held on to collect the win in dramatic fashion.
“A shame,” Palou said. “It was a good race. The car was amazing. Everybody on the No. 10 crew was amazing all weekend but we couldn’t really make the Alternate tires last. Pato started catching us and we could really do anything. I just destroyed my front tires. Then we had a slow pit stop, I couldn’t really engage first gear. Maybe I was trying to get it too fast, probably my fault.”
Scott McLaughlin finished third, the highest of the Team Penske cars, but was not a factor in the fight for the win. Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson rounded out the top five.
Though O’Ward can now be considered a title contender, two of Palou’s other challengers for the Astor Cup ended the day with less-than-optimal results.
Scott Dixon entered the race at a disadvantage after failing to advance beyond the first round of qualifying and would have benefitted immensely from some of his trademarked fuel strategy sorcery. In fact, that may have been the case had his car lived to see the green flag.
The only power-related failure of the race struck the six-time champion while the field was running behind the pace car. The No. 9 lost power coming toward turn 4 and rolled to a stop just before the entrance to turn 5. The team eventually got the car back to the garage and began investigation the issue, but did so at the cost of being 21 laps down by the time the car was back on track.
Dixon retired from the race for mechanical reasons nonetheless, completing only 40 laps on the day.
Josef Newgarden found the opposite route to similar disappointment. Where Dixon’s day was comparatively short, Newgarden’s race almost certainly felt very, very long.
A pit-road penalty for speeding on his lap-62 pit stop required Newgarden to serve a pass through on lap 64. Then, the No. 2 did not serve the penalty immediately earning him a penalty for falling to follow the direction of INDYCAR. This new penalty comes with a stop-and-go obligation.
And still, Newgarden was caught speeding on pit entry once again, finding himself nailed with another pass through on lap 66.
Speaking to Frontstretch, Newgarden said there was a software issue leading to confusion surrounding the car’s odometer.
“Something changed,” he said. “Some sort of software issue because we were plenty safe on our procedure, just looked like it overshoots. I don’t know what caused it. We don’t know what caused it.”
Rookie Toby Sowery will leave Mid-Ohio feeling good about his IndyCar debut after finishing 13th which equals Dale Coyne Racing’s best finish of the season.
“Super happy with that,” Sowery told Frontstretch after the race. “Going into the race I was completely unsure what to think. I knew the guys were making progress and I knew the guys would pull it out for the race, but it’s how much we did and for me that’s the probably the best thing we could’ve ever done, halve the grid position.
“And for such little time, for the small dogs, it’s massively impressive. I can’t thank them enough.”
2024 IndyCar Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Race Results
Next weekend (July 13-14) the IndyCar field will take on the sub-one mile oval at Iowa Speedway for the first of two doubleheaders this season. The first race will take place at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday with Sunday’s race coming at 12 p.m. ET. Coverage will be provided on NBC and Peacock.
Alex is the IndyCar Content Director at Frontstretch, having initially joined as an entry-level contributor in 2021. He also serves as Managing Director of The Asia Cable, a publication focused on the international affairs and politics of the Asia-Pacific region which he co-founded in 2023. With previous experience in China, Japan and Poland, Alex is particularly passionate about the international realm of motorsport and the politics that make the wheels turn - literally - behind the scenes.