After an eventful first heat, and a quite timid second heat the 12 qualified drivers lined up for the actual $1 million dollar challenge. Split into two parts of 10 laps each, the consensus beforehand was that the tyre degradation would be a huge factor, as it already proved difficult in the heat races, which were only 10 laps each.
At the start it is Álex Palou who gets away best, while Scott McLaughlin takes second from Felix Rosenqvist. All the way at the back it’s Colton Herta who drives quite slow, supposedly in an attempt to keep the tyres alive. Agustín Canapino seems to attempt a similar approach, which doesn’t really add to the spectacle.
Pietro Fittipaldi locks up a wheel behind his teammate Graham Rahal, which looks to be the highlight of the first part of the final. The grandson of two-time Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi subsequently lets himself drop down the order, trailing leader Palou by more than one-and-a-half minute at the red flag. Rahal enters the pits early with a stuck throttle and is eliminated for the second part of the race. Teammate Fittipaldi us disqualified for not having a full tank at the start of the final, leaving the amount of drivers for the second part at ten.
After the red flag a single-file restart sees Palou sprinting away again, while Canapino tries to overtake Alexander Rossi. This eventually costs him a spot to Herta. Rossi then overtakes Linus Lundqvist, hintin on that the tyre saving helped.
Next in line for Rossi is Josef Newgarden, but the two battle so hard they leave the track and have to let Herta and Lundqvist by. The Arrow McLaren-driver completes the overtake on the Penske-driver a few turns later.
Herta overtakes Lundqvist and is clearly less agressive than Rossi, who is the next one to tries to overtake the Swedish rookie. The American outbrakes himself and has to let Lundqvist by, again.
With five laps to go Herta is stuck behind Armstrong while Palou slowly increases the gap to McLaughlin, which as of yet proves Herta’s tactic to be the wrong one. Herta tries a late lunge on Armstrong, but the Kiwi doesn’t budge.
Half a lap later Herta makes the overtake stick, and promotes himself to fourth. Palou in the meantime doesn’t seem to have any trouble and slowly increases the gap to McLaughlin.
In the final two laps little changes, and it is Palou who takes the win and the biggest chunk of the prize pruse with $ 500.000,-. McLaughlin and Rosenqvist complete the podium, for Herta, Armstrong and Lundqvist, who stays ahead of Rossi. Newgarden finishes eighth, Lundgaard ninth and Canapino tenth.
