Gateway Indy Lights: Brabham snatches win with late pass

From his seventh pole of the season, Linus Lundqvist of HMD Motorsports with Dale Coyne Racing hit the front at the start, but teammate Benjamin Pedersen was struggling to hold off Andretti Autosport duo Matthew Brabham and Christian Rasmussen, and he had to give up his second place to Brabham on Lap 2.

Rasmussen kissed the wall but kept it straight, but then spent two laps side-by-side with Danial Frost (HMD), banging wheels at times, before establishing himself in fourth.

With 10 of the 75 laps completed, Lundqvist was 0.75sec ahead of Brabham who had the same margin over Pedersen, but five laps later Lundqvist’s advantage was down to half a second.

Approaching half distance little had changed, except Pedersen was now 1.5 behind Brabham, and Rasmussen was closing on him. On Lap 40, Rasmussen made the move around the outside through Turns 1 and 2 to claim a podium position.

With 25 laps to go, Lundqvist, Brabham and Rasmussen were approaching lapped traffic, but on Lap 52 Rasmussen got high exiting Turn 2, and smacked the wall with his right-rear wheel. Somehow he kept the impact gentle enough that he was able to limp his car to pitlane and the race was able to stay green. This was good news for Hunter McElrea and Sting Ray Robb who were able to demote Jacob Abel to seventh.

The battle for the lead didn’t seem to alter through traffic, Brabham remaining just under half a second behind, but once in clean air for the final 10 laps, Brabham started experimenting with different lines and closing his deficit to a quarter second with five to go. On Lap 72, he rocketed off Turn 2 apex and drafted past along the inside down to Turn 3 and snatched the lead.

Lundqvist tried to hang on but Brabham eked out his margin to 0.925sec by the time he passed the checkered flag for his first win since St. Petersburg. It avenged his defeat in Iowa when Lundqvist squeezed him into the wall.

Pedersen was 11sec down by the end, but 1.3sec ahead of Frost, with McElrea eight seconds further back but just ahead of Robb.