Poleman Herta led for 33 of the 55 laps and held a 1.2s lead over Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou at the start of the final stint.
But the fact he pitted a lap earlier than the majority of his rivals at the four-mile track meant he had to drive his car to a higher fuel number.
As he was forced to drop his pace to make it to the end, Palou passed him along with Josef Newgarden (Team Penske), Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren) and Scott Dixon (Ganassi).
“It was unclear to me, like, how the race was going to play out at that point,” said Herta of the decision to pit with 15 laps remaining. “It was hard to say what was going to happen on fuel numbers. I knew there was about 15 laps to go and that’s usually a pretty reasonable fuel number. But it ended up being quite a bit more.
“So, it’s a frustrating one. We had the best car, we were just cruising all the time, I had so much more in it but I never really got to show it because we were saving fuel and trying to go that lap later. So, it’s a killer.
“We still got a fifth out of it which is nice, not what we want though, so for that reason it’s pretty frustrating.
“It does suck, it’s a top five at the end, which is nice points, but at the moment I couldn’t care less about it.”
Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
Photo by: Geoffrey M. Miller / Motorsport Images
When asked whether he thought he’d be able to overhaul Herta without his issues, Palou admitted he wasn’t sure that he would have to pace until Colton slowed down.
“Honestly, the first couple of laps he did on the blacks [on the final stint] were very fast,” said Palou. “Once my tires were up to temperature, I could see he was struggling and he had to save more fuel as he pittled a lap earlier.
“I was pushing him to use the push-to-pass and then I overtook him. He was doing a good race until then.”
Of his own weekend, which included a massive accident in second practice, Palou said he was proud of his team as he extended his championship lead to 74 points.
“We saved a bit of fuel at the beginning, and the speed that we had this weekend was huge and it gave us the opportunity to win today,” he added.
“We didn’t test here last week, so we had a lot of work to do. I did a huge mistake, crashed it very hard on Saturday. But the team not only got it back on track, they repaired it so it was very fast.”
