David Malukas was left emotional after late contact with Will Power led to crashing out of Saturday night’s IndyCar Series round at Gateway.
After starting second in the #66 Meyer Shank Racing Honda, Malukas showed tremendous pace throughout the night as one of the only contenders that was able to keep up with Team Penske.
The 22-year-old Chicago native found the lead just three laps into the 260-lap contest and consistently put the pressure on eventual race winner Josef Newgarden, as well as Scott McLaughlin and Power.
Late in the running, the complexity of strategies saw Newgarden and McLaughlin left needing one more pitstop, which put the fight for the win between Malukas and Power.
With 21 laps to go while fighting through lapped traffic, Malukas dived to the inside of Power entering Turn 1. Malukas, who had his left-side tyres against the curbing and couldn’t press forward as the lapped car of Kyle Kirkwood was directly ahead, continued to get squeezed as Power came down.
The left-rear of Power’s #12 Team Penske Chevrolet caught the right sidepod of Malukas, sending him into a spin before slamming hard into the outside wall.
Malukas ended up finishing 21st on a night he led 11 laps at the 1.25-mile oval.
“I had a run,” Malukas said. “I set it up. I went down the inside. I still need to look over the video and see how it was, but from my side, I just feel like I came in.”
The third-year driver then provided more insight as he watched a replay of the incident.
“Power just came by and screamed at me,” said Malukas, who came into the weekend with two podiums in as many starts at Gateway.
“I don’t know if he even got a penalty there. I braked. I slowed down. I gave him as much room as I could other than the curb and he gave me a tap and that was kind of it. There’s not much else I could do. He’s screaming at me. Man, you have a whole second lane you can go up there.
“I would still continue to do the move. I think it was a good move. I gave him the space. We slowed down. If he would have just stayed in that second lane, we would have been perfectly fine. Side-by-side, you come down at hit me like that? Yeah, it’s unfortunate.
“We had a really good race, really good car. Yeah, it sucks.”
For Malukas, who is set to join AJ Foyt Racing in 2025, the emotions began to take over as his voice slightly quivered as when asked by NBC Sports reporter Georgia Henneberry about positives to take from the weekend when looking ahead to the next round at Portland.
“It was just such a good weekend for us,” Malukas said.
“I really wanted that result. Toronto was a good result and this was going to be another good one. The car was really good. We’ll carry this into Portland and it’ll be good.”
