MADISON, Ill.– After a rather haphazard start to his NTT IndyCar Series career, 19-year-old Nolan Siegel ended his run in Saturday’s (Aug. 17) Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway in seventh place, his first top-10 finish in IndyCar competition.
The No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet struggled in qualifying, hitting the rev limiter on the straightaways en route to a 20th-place start in the 27-car field. Siegel described the run as “terrible” after the fact, but also expressed confidence in his pace and understanding of the track.
After pitting on lap 10 under the race’s first caution period, Siegel and the others that pitted were able to run longer under green flag conditions, allowing the Californian to lead twice for eight laps.
However, Siegel sped while going down pit road for his stop on lap 147. IndyCar assessed a drive-through penalty that trapped him a lap down for the remainder of the race. However, as other competitors ran into mechanical trouble, Siegel steadily climbed up the running order, teetering on the edge of the top 10 as the race went into its final stages.
Then came the calamitous restart on lap 251. As Will Power, Alexander Rossi and eventually Romain Grosjean had contact up front, near the middle of the pack Siegel hit Jack Harvey, spinning the British racer into the outside wall.
“Definitely got lucky not to break a front wing or anything,” Siegel said of the accident. “I was a bit worried about that after that hit. It was a good little smack. The car was fine after that, plain fast, so we made up more spots at the end at the last restart.”
The race resumed on lap 254 with Siegel in ninth place. After getting by Sting Ray Robb in turn 4 on the first lap under green, Siegel then got seventh from Marcus Armstrong as the pair headed toward turn 1 just a few seconds later.
Siegel could not gain any additional time on Felix Rosenqvist and could not get by the Swede for sixth place, finishing nearly 2 seconds adrift of the first car a lap down.
Saturday’s race was the first time Siegel has raced at a track that he had tested at before the race. Instead of learning the tracks in an IndyCar over the course of a race weekend, he had a benchmark before Friday’s practice session began.
“I got right up to speed and we were ready to go and it made a massive difference this weekend and I…
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