Max Chilton ended his debut Verizon IndyCar Series race around the streets of St Petersburg on Sunday down in seventeenth after two unscheduled pit stops to clear out debris from the radiator saw him lose a lap.
Chilton was one of the drivers to have to take avoiding action around the lap fifty-seven incident that saw a ten-car pile-up that started following a clash between Graham Rahal and Carlos Munoz.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver was on course to at least challenge for a top ten finish before the debris began to cause the water temperatures to rise on his car that necessitated the additional visits to the pit lane, with his overall race pace being competitive compared to most of his rivals.
“It looked like a very promising day from the start for the Gallagher team as we were doing the same lap times as the majority of the cars around us,” revealed former Marussia Formula 1 driver Chilton.
“We were working our way forward and up to around P10 when we had an overheating problem. We had to make a long stop to clean out the radiator and get the temps back down, and then another final stop to address the same issue.”