Pato O’Ward turned a challenging weekend into a solid result by climbing 11 positions from 18th to finish seventh Sunday in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear.
“We survived it,” O’Ward said. “It’s been the worst performance weekend I’ve probably ever had in INDYCAR, really. We legit qualified 18th on just pure pace. We’ve had other times where we’ve been back there, but it’s always been because of an issue, or I made a mistake here and there. This one was truly where we deserved to be.”
Despite his frustrations, O’Ward made the most of the race through smart strategy and tire management. He and Josef Newgarden were the only two drivers in the 27-car field to start the race on Firestone Firehawk primary tires, then follow with another stint on the same compound, opting for durability over early pace.
A well-timed caution on Lap 67 due to Callum Ilott’s crash allowed O’Ward to pit again with the leaders and return to the more durable primary tire after switching to the softer alternate tires on Lap 53. This strategic move kept him in the top 10 mix during the closing laps.
The seventh-place finish gave O’Ward a much-needed 22-point gain on championship leader Alex Palou, who crashed in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda on Lap 72.
“That’s a positive considering where we were starting,” O’Ward said. “There’s plenty of racing to go. There’s more championship left than what we’ve done. I think that there’s a lot of points on the table, and you can’t expect (Alex) Palou to be making a lot of mistakes.”
O’Ward heads into the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline on June 15 at World Wide Technology Raceway second in the standings, trailing Palou by 90 points.
