Harvey makes Indianapolis Motor Speedway history with Freedom 100 win

INDIANAPOLIS - Jack Harvey is now the only driver to win professional races on both the road course and on the oval at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It was a duel between pole-sitter Ethan Ringel and his teammate Harvey but a late-race caution robbed viewers of a climax to the fight as Harvey was able to take the victory, under caution.

Harvey started second and immediately tailed Ringel, swapping the lead back and forth during the race before Ringel took over the lead during the middle portion of the race, eventually leading 30 laps of 40.

The winning move

While lapping Spencer Pigot, Harvey was able to spot a gap and managed to pass Ringel for the lead with less than ten laps to go.

Harvey’s lead became permanent following the only caution of the race with three laps to go as points leader Ed Jones lost control of his car in the fourth turn, spinning and hitting the outside wall.

Late-race crash

The crash site could not be cleaned up fast enough and the race ended under caution with Harvey finishing ahead of Ringel, Scott Anderson and RC Enerson, giving Sam Schmidt’s Indy Lights team a 1-2-3-4 finish and Ringel and Anderson their first podiums in Indy Lights competition.

Pigot’s teammate Kyle Kaiser finished fifth, 8Star Motorsports’s Sean Rayhall finished sixth ahead of Juan Piedrahita, Shelby Blackstock, Pigot, Jones, Felix Serralles and Max Chilton, whose car could not start because of electrical issues.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway history made

Harvey was victorious at the first of two Indy Lights races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course two weeks ago and moved himself into the points lead following the race today unofficially with 192 points over Jones’s 179 points and Pigot’s 168.

Harvey was unaware that he is just the second driver to win on both configurations in professional events during the month of May. Al Unser Jr. won on the road course last year in the historic races held at the Speedway, but that is not considered a 'professional event'

“That statistic is incredible, hopefully to show that I can be good in any version of this track is massive hopefully moving forward and what I can say to IndyCar teams, it’s a very humbling fact, makes me very proud, makes me proud of my team for giving me the car which can do that, to win two out of three races in the month of may is incredible, and I wanted to be leading the championship coming out of here, and winning this race in particular,” Harvey said.

One position short

Ringel was content being up front during the race but had a worrying issue with his right rear tire.

“Every tire was fine, but probably about I want to say 15 laps into the race, I started getting a weird vibration in the wheel and the whole car and I thought nothing of it,” Ringel said.

“But then it started slowly getting worse and worse and worse and by the time I had about 10 laps to go, I want to say it was really really violent so it was creating more scrub, and I didn’t know what it was. But after I came back into the pits, I was able to see that the right rear inner wall of the tire was actually on the treads, and I mean if the yellow didn’t come out, I don’t know, the tire probably would have blown up on me so honestly I’m kind of thankful for the yellow,” Ringel said.

Anderson takes final spot on the podium

Scott Anderson drove for Fan Force United last season in Indy Lights with a fourth at Milwaukee and a fifth at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course last season being his only highlights, so he was thrilled with his finish today and thankful for his team for helping him achieve this result.

“Being with an operation like Schmidt-Peterson is really all you can ask for in racing, they give you what you need to win. We’ve been pretty successful this year, I think unfortunately the new car has been a bit of a struggle for me on the road and street courses but it hasn’t really affected the ovals so as it showed this weekend, it kind of worked out well.”