Seething Christian Rasmussen Laments Lost Win after Late Contact

Christian Rasmussen’s disgust following Saturday’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES race at Phoenix Raceway showed as much in his body language as his words.

Leaning against the pit wall, his comments were direct. He felt Will Power drove him into the outside wall late in the Good Ranchers 250, and he didn’t need television’s replay to affirm it.

“You can’t just run people into the wall, which is what happened,” the 25-year-old ECR driver (photo, top, left) said on the FOX broadcast. “He ran me straight into the wall, (and) after that I had damage.”

Rasmussen had been dogging Power around the 1-mile desert oval in a duel for the lead, and it really shouldn’t have been much of a fight as Rasmussen had the fresher Firestone tires. Another aggressive move to the front seemed inevitable.

Coming off Turn 2 onto the track’s longest straightaway, Rasmussen pulled to the outside of Power with a head of steam. Power drifted in the same direction, and the tandem ran out of room. Rasmussen hit the wall relatively flush with his car’s right side (photo, above), but it bounced back into Power’s machine, Rasmussen’s left front wing cutting Power’s right rear tire.

Power quickly realized his car’s damage and pulled to the low lane as the caution came out. Rasmussen wasn’t initially sure if his car had suffered a fatal blow, but he suspected trouble.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” he said on his team’s radio.

The Dane was right, although it took 11 caution laps and 24 laps after the restart for his race to unravel. Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood finally passed the struggling leader with nine laps remaining, and eventual winner Josef Newgarden got him soon after as Rasmussen was effectively done. A glance off the frontstretch wall confirmed it. He limped home 14th.

“Lower wishbone (on the) front, upper and lower wishbone on the rear and the toe link,” Rasmussen said of the damage to the No. 21 ECR Splenda Stevia Chevrolet. “Obviously, some of that was from (the last wall impact), but the car was just impossible to drive after (the Power incident), and I just did what I could to salvage the day and not crash the car.

“It’s just frustrating, man, so frustrating because we should have won the race today and obviously didn’t.”

Power gave Rasmussen an explanation after the race, noting that he has a different spotter this year with Andretti Global. But it didn’t change the result.

“If I heard he's got a wing on you, it's on me,” Power told reporters. “I can't blame anyone but myself. There it was for the win. So, you keep it tight. But I should have given him more (room). New spotter this year. He’s really good, (but) there’s a little bit of terminology that would be different there. My old spotter I had for 17 years, he has different terminology. It's just teething things, you know, I feel bad.

“Rasmussen deserves that win. He is very quick. It was going to be a good fight to the end, but he was strong. I was trying my best to take his air and try to use his tires up. But, you know, ultimately, you could see like, if he had the run there, he was going to get me next corner.”

Rasmussen was right to describe himself as “the class of the field,” as he was even more deserving than in last year’s career-first victory at the Milwaukee Mile when he led only the last 16 laps. In this 250-lap dogfight, he charged through the field from the 18th starting position to grab his first lead on Lap 73. Throughout the race, he was excitement defined.

There were so many instances when Rasmussen appeared on the verge of crashing, but he escaped most of them. He did have mid-race contact with six-time series champion Scott Dixon, his front wing banging the left rear tire of Dixon’s No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Somehow, both drivers continued.

Rasmussen also avoided disaster when Dennis Hauger, another INDY NXT by Firestone champion, spun off Turn 2 in front of him.

Officially, Rasmussen led 69 laps, but he was the effective leader for many more as other drivers were on different pit strategies in a bid to match his torrid pace. He was the star of INDYCAR’s very good show – 565 on-track passes, 323 of them for position -- and that added to the disappointment that was obvious.

“The best car out there,” he said with a sigh.