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USA

IMS Indy Lights: Malukas holds off Sowery in last-lap battle

David Malukas scored his third win in six Indy Lights races, but his HMD Motorsports car held off Juncos Racing’s Toby Sowery by only five feet after a great last-lap battle.

David Malukas, HMD Motosports

David Malukas, HMD Motosports

Art Fleischmann

Malukas retained his advantage at the start of the race, but Sowery was all over yesterday’s winner Lundqvist and down the front straight at the start of the second lap, the Juncos Racing driver moved smoothly up the inside of the Swede to claim second.

Behind them, Carlin’s Alex Peroni held off Sting Ray Robb and the fastest of the Andretti Autosport drivers, Kyle Kirkwood, who had started the race on brand new tires. He and teammates Devlin DeFrancesco and Danial Frost moved past Robb on Lap 3 as the Juncos driver ran slightly wide through the Turn 11 sequence.

Lundqvist then made an uncharacteristic mistake at Turn 1 on Lap 4, running onto the grass, thereby promoting Peroni and Kirkwood to third and fourth. DeFrancesco also tried to pass Lundqvist around the outside of Turn 1 but pinched the Global Racing Group/HMD driver too hard on the inside curb, the subsequent bounce for Lundqvist sending both of them out wide, although Frost was unable to take advantage of their lost momentum. In fact, three laps later, Robert Megennis deposed Frost at Turn 7 to claim seventh.

Up front on Lap 6 of the 35, Malukas was one second ahead of Sowery who had two seconds over the Peroni vs Kirkwood battle, but a couple of laps later those gaps closed, Malukas holding onto the lead by 0.8sec and Peroni just 1.1sec adrift of Sowery.

With 25 laps down, the top four were covered by only 2.9sec but Malukas turned his fastest lap to run 0.8sec ahead of Sowery. Five laps later, the lead quartet were covered by just 2sec, but none of the chasing three had yet made a move on the car in front.

Finally at the start of the last lap, Sowery made an attempt to pass on the outside of Turn 1, but Malukas forced him to run wide on the exit. Sowery kept coming at him though, making Malukas go defensive into Turn 7 at the end of the back straight.

Sowery then stalked the HMD Motorsports car through Turns 11-13, and off the last corner he popped out from the draft to the yard of bricks, falling only 0.0283sec short.

Peroni was only six tenths behind this pair with Kirkwood a further 0.4sec down. Lundqvist remained ahead of DeFrancesco, but Megennis passed Frost for seventh on the very last lap, albeit 17sec from the lead battle.

P

No

Name

Laps

LapTime

FL

FTime

Diff

Gap

Led

ST

Status

Speed

FSpeed

Elapsed

Team

I1

I2

I3

Points

1

79

David Malukas

35

1:18.9496

25

1:17.2483

LAP 35

 

35

1

Active

111.215

113.665

45:18.5916

HMD Motorsports

38.7031

26.9475

24.6567

151

2

51

Toby Sowery

35

1:18.6305

34

1:17.1985

0.0283

0.0283

 

3

Active

111.667

113.738

45:18.6199

Juncos Racing

37.3351

26.7699

24.3562

105

3

5

Alex Peroni

35

1:18.5442

23

1:17.1692

0.7047

0.6764

 

4

Active

111.789

113.781

45:19.2963

Carlin

38.5857

26.8320

24.5692

101

4

28

Kyle Kirkwood

35

1:18.1130

23

1:17.0380

1.1236

0.4189

 

6

Active

112.406

113.975

45:19.7152

Andretti Autosport

38.9078

26.8542

24.5283

124

5

26

Linus Lundqvist

35

1:17.5438

23

1:17.3820

8.1975

7.0739

 

2

Active

113.231

113.468

45:26.7891

Global Racing Group w/HMD Motorsports

36.4387

26.5754

24.3241

140

6

17

Devlin DeFrancesco

35

1:17.8451

23

1:17.3586

9.5712

1.3737

 

8

Active

112.793

113.503

45:28.1628

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

35.3264

26.7012

24.3767

99

7

27

Robert Megennis

35

1:19.7039

25

1:17.4506

17.4062

7.8350

 

9

Active

110.163

113.368

45:35.9978

Andretti Autosport

30.0754

27.6070

24.4484

83

8

68

Danial Frost

35

1:20.6047

27

1:17.4603

17.8252

0.4190

 

7

Active

108.932

113.354

45:36.4168

Andretti Autosport

34.2878

27.7373

24.5475

95

9

24

Benjamin Pedersen

35

1:18.0029

30

1:17.6005

22.7898

4.9646

 

10

Active

112.565

113.149

45:41.3814

Global Racing Group wHMD Motorsports

33.4640

26.8143

24.5008

88

10

2

Sting Ray Robb

35

1:17.9649

34

1:17.9580

28.7035

5.9137

 

5

Active

112.620

112.630

45:47.2951

Juncos Racing

26.6182

26.8867

24.4600

72

11

11

Antonio Serravalle

35

1:18.7695

34

1:17.8706

30.1059

1.4024

 

11

Active

111.470

112.756

45:48.6975

Pserra Racing

27.2345

26.8215

24.7135

64

12

7

Christian Bogle

35

1:18.3035

34

1:17.8281

37.2713

7.1654

 

13

Active

112.133

112.818

45:55.8629

Carlin

26.8574

26.8683

24.5778

59

13

59

Nikita Lastochkin

35

1:18.3567

30

1:17.8904

39.5541

2.2828

 

12

Active

112.057

112.728

45:58.1457

HMD Motorsports

26.8749

26.8541

24.6277

61

 

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