PRO MAZDA: O’Ward walks to Race 1 win

His teammate may have held pole position, but it didn't matter Saturday afternoon as "Pato" O'Ward jumped into the lead amid a confused start and made serious inroads in the championship lead held by Aaron Telitz.

Mexico's O'Ward walked away from Telitz with ease as his Team Pelfrey stablemate was unable to respond during most of the 30-minute contest. O'Ward stretched an 11.6-second lead over the Wisconsinite, but it was erased when Kory Enders sailed into the sand trap in Turn 2 with approximately six minutes remaining.

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Telitz did his best to leapfrog O'Ward at the restart and briefly held the lead when O'Ward ran wide at Turn 2 but O'Ward forced his way past at Turn 5 and it was clear that nothing was going to stop the young Mexican from capturing his seventh win of the year and his first since Lucas Oil Raceway on May 27 during the one-lap shootout.

A botched start saw the green flag thrown before the field began to accelerate, and without the polesitter on the throttle at that moment, it allowed O'Ward to leave Telitz behind. Based on the setup differences between their cars, it proved to be academic, but the sight of the polesitter being left at a standstill by the second-place starter was not the kind of precedent to set during the first of seven championship-deciding Mazda Road to Indy races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

"The polesitter is supposed to accelerate but they threw the green before everybody started accelerating," O'Ward said. "It was an exciting final laps, wasn't it?"

Telitz acknowledged he would have fallen prey to O'Ward no matter what happened in the flag stand, but still questioned the start.

"My tires really fell off at the end," he said. "He just made a great move and he drove really, really well. I don't think the start was fair; Pato was by me before the finish line. I have no idea why they didn't make us do the start over again. We have a good set of tires for tomorrow morning's race, so we'll go for the win there."

Telitz trailed home 1.0176 seconds behind O'Ward and saw his 15-point lead reduced to eight with the two races left to run this weekend. Nicholas Dapero was a strong third (-1.2102).