Road America Indy Lights: Rasmussen earns first win

On Lap 1, Rasmussen drafted past polesitter Robb up the long front straight to take the inside into Turn 1.

The pair were chased by two more Andretti cars, those of Matt Brabham and Hunter McElrea, although that order flipped briefly when the former made a mistake, then re-passed McElrea at Turn 3 on Lap 4 following a restart.

On a Lap 9 restart, Robb tried to return the favor on Rasmussen and the pair ran side-by-side through Turn 3 and under braking for Turn 5, but Robb held the advantage. Then Christian Bogle launched his HMD Motorsports car off a curb at Turn 5 and went nose first into the debris fence, fortunately at low enough speed to not incur an injury.

The race was then red flagged for fence repair and didn’t resume until after the IndyCar race, at which point Rasmussen did what he’d done on the opening lap to pass Robb into Turn 1. Although Robb stayed close for four laps, gradually Rasmussen eked out his advantage and eventually won by 2.36sec.

Brabham was sent to the back of the field for a blocking maneuver which sent Benjamin Pedersen off course, so McElrea found a new challenger in another HMD driver Danial Frost who struck his rear at Turn 3 and fell off into the sandtrap.

McElrea spent the remainder of the race defending from championship leader Linus Lundqvist, and did so successfully, thereby completing an Andretti Autosport 1-2-3.