Jamin earns second Lights win as tire fells Herta

Frenchman Nico Jamin picked up his second win of the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires season with a convincing wire-to-wire 30-lap win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, taking the checkered flag 0.8405sec ahead of Carlin Racing's Zachary Claman De Melo.

Jamin, 21 was pressured in the early laps by teammate Colton Herta, who qualified sixth but jumped up to second. A remarkably consistent series of fast laps enabled Jamin to stretch his lead to almost two seconds by lap 11, whereupon Herta suddenly began to come under attack from a train of cars comprising Kaiser, Claman De Melo and Neil Alberico, who lost a position to his teammate on that same lap but remained firmly in contention. Points leader Herta found himself in trouble on lap 14 when Kyle Kaiser forced him wide, taking second as De Melo took advantage of the battle to squeeze by for third. Herta continued to drop through the field and eventually pitted with nine laps to go with a punctured right rear. He finished 12th.

By this time Jamin held a comfortable lead of 3.7 seconds over a battling Kaiser and Claman De Melo, but that margin was gradually whittled down until, on lap 22, the two leaders were separated by less than two seconds. Next time around, Staubli Award winner Claman De Melo squeezed past Kaiser on the run toward Turn 1. Even though the pass cost him a little bit of ground to the ultra-consistent race leader, the young Canadian kept on turning fast laps to take the checkered flag just 0.8405 seconds adrift of Jamin.

Alberico claimed his fourth top-four finish of the year, while rookie teammate Matheus Leist recorded the fastest lap of the race as he climbed from ninth on the grid to fifth for his best finish of the young season. Leist, from Novo Hamburgo, Brazil, also earned the Tilton Hard Charger Award.

“It is amazing emotions – I don’t think it gets any better than winning at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway," said Jamin, who now trails Herta by just three points in the standings. "I was nervous starting on pole. You’re always happy to get the pole and the check but I saw in USF2000 here two years ago that the guys behind you can really get a good run into Turn 1.

"I knew I had to get a good jump and I did, though I didn’t want to look in my mirror because I knew it would be a mess. I broke really late into Turn 1 but Colton was close behind me and I had to defend. We made it clean so it was alright in the end. I pushed hard in the beginning to get away from Colton, who was on his push-to-pass, but then Zach was a rocket ship at the end and was catching up. The guys were yelling on the radio for me to push harder, but I couldn’t. But I’m very happy to have gotten the pole and the win for the DuraMAX guys, who have joined me this month.”

The win gives Andretti Autosport its fourth win in five races this season.

De Melo, 19, eventually got past Kaiser for second, his first series podium.

“I knew I had really good race pace so my plan at the start was just to stay calm and stay on the track," he said. "My plan was also to have a good start, but that didn’t go my way so I had to try and pass as many guys as possible. I didn’t think about much, just that each and every guy in front of me was my target. I had some lapped traffic as I got near to Nico otherwise I think I could have challenged him. The car never dropped off. It gives me good confidence going into qualifying and the race tomorrow.”

Kaiser wound up third, followed by Neil Alberico and Matheus Leist in fifth. Kaiser is now tied on points with Jamin following his third consecutive podium finish.

The race ran caution-free, with one off-track excursion by Juncos Racing's Nicolas Dapero. Juan Piedrahita was unable to suffer the race after a practice crash caused extensive damage.

Race 2 of the Indy Lights weekend gets under way Saturday at 1:15 p.m. ET.