After a crash in qualifying caused a red flag and meant he lost his fastest laps in the Firestone Fast Six shootout, Grosjean climbed from sixth on the grid to deliver his first podium for the Andretti Autosport-Honda team and the fourth of his 19-race-old IndyCar career.
Grosjean alone among the front-runners was on fresh Firestone alternate compound tires in the final stint, and was running fourth on the penultimate restart on Lap 66 of the 85-lap race. He had to dodge past Marcus Ericsson who crashed his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda in front of him, and that allowed him to close onto the tail of another Ganassi car, that of reigning champion Alex Palou.
Into Turn 1, he attempted to pass him on the outside on Lap 69, and then made the same maneuver stick the following lap.
Grosjean then started to apply pressure on leader Josef Newgarden, but even following the final restart, he couldn’t quite find a gap in the Penske-Chevrolet driver’s defense.
“You know, you don’t have…
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