Pato O’Ward has reflected on a productive day during Sunday’s Sonsio GP, securing the runner up spot behind Alex Palou.
Starting back in eighth, Pato O’Ward faced a tough challenge to move up the order to secure a podium spot.
The Arrow McLaren driver took advantage of the dramatic gains to be made from overcutting and undercutting, and moved into second place in the closing stages of the Sonsio GP.
Despite a late caution bunching up the field. O’Ward could not challenge the dominant Chip Gannasi of Alex Palou.
Speaking to the media in the post-race press conference, including Fastest Formula News, Pato O’Ward outlined his race.
“We fought hard today. Started eighth, and I was pretty happy with the balance of my car. Just missed it there in qualifying with the issues that we had in a straight line, but Ian fixed it. It was good to have good pace.“
O’Ward said called his race “eventful”, as he highlighted his secret to moving up the order during a challenging race.
“In terms of strategy it was nice to be in a boring fuel save, ‘follow the leader’ type situation. It was nice to be able to push and undercut, overcut. I think the tyre rule, at least from our side, that was pretty
eventful, I would say.”“I would be keen to seeing that in Detroit because tee green tyre, It would be great if we would have done that at St. Pete and Long Beach, to be honest.”
Are tyre rule changes key to halting Alex Palou’s charge
Pato O’Ward also said he hoped that the Sonsio GP was exciting for fans in the face of Palou’s ruthless dominance.
” I think hopefully today was a bit more eventful than the ones in the past, but got to do something to stop that 10 car. They’re really, really just on it. They don’t make a mistake. It’s pretty impressive.”
When asked about the tyre changes for this weekend, O’Ward gave an honest insight. Teams were required to run two sets of alternate compound and two sets of primary compound tyres. This is one more set that previously required.
“I think we went into it with a lot of unknowns. I think a lot of people are, like, Ah, it’s going to be a red race. Some guy said, Oh, no, they’re going to deg. I think the black was a lot better than what we
thought, or at least from our camp.”
“I think here it obviously puts some uncertainty in people’s decisions, so to kind of see how aggressive you wanted to be with it. I really think in our street course compounds, if this race would have been in effect in St. Pete and Long Beach, everything would have looked completely different.”
He continued: “I think that would have made even better racing, more passes because now you’re forced to do the greens.
“You don’t get lucky with the first yellow falling down and you’re, like, Oh, let me get off of them and just run a full black race. No, you still have to run another set. You’re going to be miserable at least another 20 laps.
“I think we need to push INDYCAR and force them to enforce this rule for Detroit. I really think that rule is going to switch things in the racing, and I think it’s going to produce a race that is so much more
entertaining.”
