INDIANAPOLIS — Conor Daly was dropping like a stone early in Saturday’s (May 14) GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. However, avoiding chaos helped Daly earn his first top five finish in almost five years.
After starting fourth, the Noblesville, Indiana native fell to fifth at the start of the race and remained there after every driver in the 27-car field pitted to replace their wet tires with slicks on the semi-dry track.
Daly was still in fifth place, but Josef Newgarden got around his fellow Team USA Scholarship winner going into turn 1 on lap 12.
Going into turn 7, Takuma Sato passed Daly for sixth place and after the corner, Alexander Rossi got by into seventh place.
Scott McLaughlin, Jack Harvey and Rinus VeeKay went around Daly after turns 10-11. Shortly thereafter, Romain Grosjean and Callum Ilott each gained a position in turn 12 while Simon Pagenaud made a pass of his own in turn 13 going around the outside of the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet.
Daly started lap 13 in 14th place and went as low as 18th place on lap 15. Exasperation seemed to set in for Daly behind the wheel as the pit stand asked him to get back into a rhythm.
“I swear, I am trying,” was Daly’s reply.
“Everything in the data looks fine.
I understand, there’s no way it changes that much. It’s not your fault.”
Pit wall and Daly.#IndyGP #IndyCar
— Christopher DeHarde (@CDeHarde) May 14, 2022
Pitting on lap 28 seemed to cure the car’s woes as a new set of red sidewall tires made the car handle better.
“I don’t know what happened on the first set of reds,” Daly said post-race. “But they were used reds, and we just went straight backwards. Car was an absolute handful, and I have no idea why. Then it kind of forced our hand and we put on new reds, and it was right back to the great car that it was.
“Firestone obviously makes a great tire, and sometimes when you put on the used reds, I don’t know if you pick up…
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