Indianapolis, Ind. (3 October 2020) – Three well executed pit stops, aggressive driving when needed and a perfect fuel strategy resulted in a strong sixth place finish for Jack Harvey and the No. 60 AutoNation / SiriusXM Honda on Saturday.
The second of two races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Harvest Grand Prix weekend ran at a flat out pace with all 75 laps of green flag racing as Meyer Shank Racing generated its fifth top 10 finish of the 2020 IndyCar season.
The second half of the double-header Harvest Grand Prix weekend began with qualifying on Saturday morning. After not getting the opportunity to make a run on reds during Qualifying on Thursday, Harvey was looking forward to a redo for Qualifying 2. Harvey put the No. 60 AutoNation / SiriusXM Honda seventh for the start of Race 2.
Another hectic yet clean run into Turn 1 on the start began the 75 lap hunt to the podium for Harvey and MSR. After falling back to ninth on the start, Harvey wasted no time to gain back one position by the second lap. The third year MSR driver capitalized on his strength in Turn 1 to pass two additional cars, moving him back up to sixth by Lap 7.
After a well executed first stop on Lap 23 for black tires, Harvey filtered back into the fray sixth. He began to close the gap to fifth from 5-seconds to 2.3-seconds before his second and final stop on Lap 51. It was a race to the finish for Harvey who closed out the 75-lap event on Firestone primary tires.
With pressure from two cars behind on alternate tires, Harvey still managed to maintain a 2-second gap for the majority of his stint despite having to manage fuel consumption at every turn. Harvey held onto sixth across the finish line, and with just enough fuel to get him an extra few feet before pulling off track with an empty tank.
“I thought the pace that we had today was decent, we finished sixth and started 7th,” said Harvey. “The strategy was just about as good as it could have got. To come out of Indy with an eighth and a sixth, it maybe is a little less than what we might have hoped. But, we’ve been so consistently qualified in the top 10 and racing in the top 10. Outside of a little bit of bad luck, I think we have finished quite well. Now we just need to figure out what steps we need to take to get to the podium.”
The NTT INDYCAR Series season finale will finish where the season was originally scheduled to start. MSR will finish the season on the Streets of St. Petersburg on October 25th. But first, the MSR squad will head to the Charlotte ROVAL for the first time as the team’s IMSA program heads into the weekend holding the championship lead.
