David Malukas fought for the podium until the last yellow, ending up in 4th place.
Dale Coyne with HMD Motorsports Honda driver David Malukas could take the chequered flag in 4th place, only two-tenths shy of Alex Palou, that closed off the podium. It’s his best result of the season so far.
Malukas started the race in 9th and ran in the top 10 throughout the whole race, but after Felix Rosenqvist’s crash brought out the second yellow of the Sunday, the team decided to keep track position, not pit, and he ended up in 3rd place. During that stint, Malukas admitted he issues with his No. 18 speaking post-race.
If there wasn’t another caution, Malukas would have needed to pit during a green flag period and ended up going a lap down.
However, a crash for teammate Sting Ray Robb brought out the yellows again and saved his day. It allowed him to stay on the lead lap and was in P8 on the restart.
Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | Chris Owens
After DeFrancesco and Rahal’s crash, which brought another yellow, ended with 12 laps to go, Malukas was in 5th place and could pass Colton Herta for 4th. He could stick with the front pack and fight with Alex Palou for the podium place until Romain Grosjean touched his right rear wheel and caused the last yellow of the race as the Andretti Autosport car found the wall.
Josef Newgarden just edged out Pato O’Ward when the yellow came and won the race. Malukas ended a brilliant 4th.
David Malukas is now 6th in the championship with 53 points, the highest non-Penske, Ganassi, or McLaren driver.
“My new word for this week is gonna be: beautiful chaos,” said Malukas to NBC. “I loved it, I was having a blast.
“We were going inside, outside and we were with the Big 3. All these big names and this little Dave going inside, outside. It was so much fun and obviously really great racing. Very aggressive, but everybody still gave just enough space to make sure that we all go through safely, but also put on a good show.
“We had a few issues with the car halfway through and we survived that stint. Thankfully my teammate Sting Ray is okay but that yellow definitely saved us because our car was not in the greatest shape. I ended up losing a couple of my tools inside the car, but we managed to come in, fix it and went back out and had a great run until the end there.
“Thank you so much to the team and Honda, everyone did an amazing job this weekend. What a great way to start the season with two top ten finishes in a row.”
