Colton Herta Motors to Fourth-Straight Indy Lights Win

By Aaron Bearden, Open Wheel Editor

Colton Herta’s winning ways continued on to Road America.

Herta charged to the front from third in the opening laps and held off a mid-race challenge from Andretti Autosport Patricio O’Ward to secure his fourth-consecutive Indy Lights victory for Andretti-Steinbrenner Racing.

“This is the fourth race we’ve won in a row, so we obviously have a package working,” Herta said afterward. “It’s been fun. These cars race amazingly – we don’t have a lot of aero understeer, so you can stay behind a car closely, and the push to pass helps massively.

“It’s a proper race car, you can race it in and we showed that today.”

Herta and O’Ward were the two that ultimately dueled for the race win, but it was Victor Franzoni that led the field to green in Elkhart Lake. The Brazilian held the top spot for the opening five circuits, but consistently pressure from Herta proved to be too much to bare in the end. The Californian took the lead on Lap 6 and set about maintaining it.

O’Ward rose to challenge Herta for the lead through the ensuing six laps, but on Lap 12 the Mexican driver ran wide on a turn and lost ground. From that moment on the race was Herta’s to lose.

The second-generation driver ultimately took the victory over O’Ward by 3.7061 seconds

“I would have love to have gotten the win – but when I got alongside Colton, I went off [track] and for some reason the car started acting a little funky after I went over the rumble strips,” O’Ward said. “I’ve broken so many tires this year, that I just wanted to get the car home. I’m happy to be in second place, we are starting on Pole tomorrow and looking forward to another good race.”

Franzoni held on to claim third and the final position on the podium for Juncos Racing. Santi Urrutia and Aaron Telitz rounded out the top five, with Ryan Norman and Dalton Kellett completing the seven-car field.

The Indy Lights field will return for a second race at Road America on Sunday at 10:50 am ET.

Indy Lights Race 1 Results

1. Colton Herta
2. Patricio O’Ward
3. Victor Franzoni
4. Santi Urrutia
5. Aaron Telitz
6. Ryan Norman
7. Dalton Kellett