Felix Rosenqvist led from start to finish to claim the checkered flag in Heat 1 of Sunday’s $1 Million Challenge IndyCar race at The Thermal Club in Thermal, Calif.
The Meyer Shank Racing driver defeated Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin by 0.497 seconds. He was followed by his Team Penske teammate Josef Newgarden’s No. 2 Chevrolet, Agustin Canapino’s No. 78 Chevrolet and Colton Herta’s No. 26 Honda.
Those six drivers advanced into the 12-car $1 Million Challenge.
“It’s an awesome start,” Rosenqvist said. “It felt like I won the race, but I was having tire deg at the end. This is a great start for Meyer Shank Racing.
“It was a bit of a tricky one. It got dusty early but cleaned off after a few laps. The long race is going to be a challenge with the tires.”
Rosenqvist led the 14-car field to the green in the 10-lap first heat where the top six finishers would advance into the $1 Million Challenge with a purse of $1.756 million.
The format was 10 laps or 20 minutes, whichever came first. Caution laps did not count.
The first Heat started at 9:36 Pacific Time with the ambient temperature 65 degrees and the track temp 77 degrees Fahrenheit, ideal conditions for hard racing.
It didn’t take long for calamity, however, as three cars crashed just past the green flag including Romain Grosjean in the No. 77 Chevrolet, Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing. It appeared Scott Dixon darted to the middle to evade Grosjean after Colton Herta went to the inside at the green flag.
Grosjean was extremely upset when approached by a member of the AMR Safety Team. The driver appeared to shove him.
“I got hit under braking really, really badly in the back and the car spun,” Grosjean said. “We come here with nothing on the line, and the car’s completely smashed.
“Who is going to pay for the damage? We did nothing wrong, and the car is completely smashed.
“This is not what I signed up for in IndyCar.
“That’s completely uncalled for.”
Race Control penalized Dixon for unavoidable contact and had to serve a drive through penalty when the race was restarted and reverted back to lap one.
“There was a lot going on,” Dixon said. “Initially, Herta and I got into it. Grosjean went to the left and then he faded to the right. Obviously, you don’t want to collect anybody and I want to apologize to anybody for that incident.”
At the end of the first lap, Rosenqvist led McLaughlin, Newgarden, Lundgaard and Canapino with Herta in the sixth position that would automatically transfer.
Nolan Siegel, a 19-year-old Indy NXT driver making his first career IndyCar start, was up to seventh and looked quite impressive in his debut in the early stages.
Because of the first lap caution, it became a race of the clock instead of 10 laps.
Will Power and Kyle Kirkwood, further back in the pack, had some outstanding racing with some daring switchback moves as they tried to advance up to the final transfer position. Those drivers were in ninth and 10th place.
“That was a wild start,” Power said. “I actually saved the team some money.
With four minutes to go, and Rosenqvist 1.141-seconds ahead of McLaughlin, the driver was told to save his tires in case of a late-race restart in the Heat.
Rosenqvist easily won the race, although it does not count as an “official” IndyCar win.
Heat 2 is next.