LEXINGTON, OH — Simon Pagenaud is ailing, Conor Daly is waiting and Colton Herta and Graham Rahal was praising mid-season changes. Oh yeah, rain could be coming…Buckle up, Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 (1:30 p.m. ET, USA, INDYCAR Radio Network) could be a wild one.

It’s been a wild weekend thus far.

On Friday it was David Malukas admitting that his time with Dale Coyne Racing could be coming to an end this Fall. It was also Andretti Autosport confirming some personnel movement in the off week with Colton Herta having his third strategist in just nine races.

A day later, Simon Pagenaud’s brake line failed on his Meyer Shank Racing No. 60 Dallara-Honda which sent the Frenchman barrel rolling into the Turn 4 sand trap. Luckily, Pagenaud walked away. Unfortunately, his status is uncertain as he’ll have to be reevaluated on Sunday morning in order to get cleared.

Pagenaud says he’s fine. INDYCAR will wait and see.

If he can’t go, Conor Daly will sub.

“I’m ready,” Pagenaud said. “I can get back in now,” Pagenaud said. “It’s not a problem. It’s going to be the doctor’s decision. It was a pretty big hit. We’ll see what they say. There’s a protocol to follow. Again, that’s to keep the drivers safe.

“We’ll see what they say. Very unfortunate day for us. But I got some TV time, I guess.”

A few hours later, Friday’s quickest driver and last year’s pole sitter, Pato O’Ward, spun in the early minutes of the opening round of qualifying. As a result, he will start 25th. He wasn’t alone among championship front-runners being eliminated in Round 1. So was 2021 Mid-Ohio race winner Josef Newgarden who enters Sunday’s race third in points (-81).

“It was my mistake. I just feel for the team,” O’Ward said. “We had a really fast car, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go forward tomorrow, right? It was all on me. I just lost the rear. It got to an angle where I couldn’t save it, and I stalled it as soon as I got into the grass. It sucks. You’re taking these cars to the limit, and sometimes these things will happen.

“It’s probably not going to be the last time it happens, so you just have to look forward. At least this isn’t a race; this is just qualifying. The race is super long, so we can make a lot of spots when you have a comfortable car underneath you. We’ll go forward tomorrow; I have no doubt in my mind.”

O’Ward went from the pole to finishing 24th a year ago and was out for redemption because of that. He’ll try to climb from 25th to 1st 364 days later.

If he can’t make it, he’ll be cheering for former Andretti Autosport teammate in Indy Lights Colton Herta. The 23-year-old driver won the pole in dramatic fashion on Saturday afternoon when he was the final driver on track to beat home state hero Graham Rahal.

He’d do just that in a margin of only .0432-seconds.

An Andretti-Rahal front row in rural Ohio on the Fourth of July weekend is everything right with INDYCAR. In fact, both organizations have two cars lining up inside the Top-5 in Sunday’s 80 lap race. The question now is, can they stay there?

This is exactly why Andretti swapped strategists during the off week. They threw away a win in Road America with Herta on the pole and leading the race heading to the final pit stops. He was called down pit lane one lap too soon and it not only cost him a win, but a podium finish too.

In St. Pete, Romain Grosjean crashed with 29 laps-to-go while battling for the lead. In Barber, Grosjean was unfortunately on the wrong end of strategy from the pole. It wasn’t his fault though but rather an ill-timed caution.

In Detroit, Grosjean ruined his front row starting spot with a spin then later a crash.

Between eight races run, Andretti has now had a car on the front row in six of them. They have one win to show for the previous five. Can they at least go 2-for-6 in the ninth race run?

Between Herta (pole) and Kyle Kirkwood (starts 3rd), you have to think one of them can snag the win. Kirkwood won 8 of his 9 Road to Indy starts here and says that his seat time on this track is as much here than anywhere else and he uses that to his advantage.

 “They’re obviously pretty critical on strategists after every race when they’re going over everything and they have their meetings and I’m sure they get drilled pretty good in those meetings if they make a wrong decision, said Herta on Saturday.

“But it’s tough. It’s just like the drivers; you’ve got to do it, and you’ve got to do it every time, and if you can’t, it sucks, but that’s the way it is.”

What about RLL?

In Indy, they had 2 cars in the top four and had just one finish in the top five. In fact, it was the pole sitter dropping to fourth while being on the wrong tire strategy.

“There’s been a few changes. Fundamentally there were things that needed to happen,” said Rahal. “As I keep saying, we’re finally being rewarded for the changes. It’s hard to make those mid-season. It’s factual. It’s hard to make a change and immediately see a result. It’s not typical, but we had a lot of good people that I think were being held back a little bit.

“Once we started to unleash them a little bit to realize their full potential, it benefitted the entire program, and so we’re starting to see that, at least on road courses.

“It feels really good. I’m excited for what tomorrow has in store. Hopefully Mother Nature is nice to us and we can go battle, because I do actually feel that our race pace may be a little better that I expected out of qualifying, so I’m excited.”

Rahal was joined up front by his teammates. Christian Lundgaard starts fifth in his No. 45 Dallara-Honda. Jack Harvey starts 12th.

Lundgaard has qualified sixth, first, seventh and now fifth on natural road courses this season. Harvey has his second-best start behind being fourth at Indy.

“Yeah, really nice for the team. It’s been a long time coming,” Rahal said on RLL’s pace on Saturday. “We’ve been beat up. We’ve been bruised. We’ve been knocked down. For us as a team to rebound this way, I could have told you last night after the practice, yeah, I was P20, but I told everybody I don’t think that’s real at all.

“And I told the guys in the engineering room I said, actually I think I’ve got P2, P3 pace and I don’t normally say that unless I’m fairly confident that we do. This morning we went out, ran only one set of blacks, we’re right there.

“So, yeah, I felt good. To be honest with you, this is the first weekend I felt like I’ve had the car to where I can drive it the way I want to drive it, and it’s rewarded me because finally — like this isn’t a long year, and it’s finally to the place I can charge the entries, I can do the things that I like to do with my style, and it’s just nice to finally see the result come.

“It almost feels in a weird way like today you don’t have to drive nearly as hard as you were the last two years combined. You knew the speed was there. You weren’t over by pressuring yourself. You just simply needed to work through it and get there.

“It certainly was nice to see the result, as I said, for the whole team.”

Between four combined Andretti-RLL cars, you have to think 1 of them gets it right.

However, you can’t overlook Alex Palou sitting there in fourth.

With Marcus Ericsson starting 9th, Newgarden in 15th and O’Ward 25th, I’m curious on if the points leader in Palou tries to change his approach on how to attack Sunday’s race? He said earlier this week that it’s far too early to points race. However, with only three cars in front of him and none of which a rival to take the title from him, how does he play it out?

4 of the 6 races this season on road courses were won from the second row. Marcus Ericsson started 4th in St. Pete, Scott McLaughlin fourth in Barber and Palou from third at Indy and Road America. 1 of the 2 ovals were too with Josef Newgarden rolling off fourth in Texas.

Palou starts fourth on Sunday…

Scott Dixon starts one row behind him in sixth while Team Penske teammates of Will Power (7th) and Scott McLaughlin (8th) share Row 4.

4 Andretti and RLL cars vs. 4 Ganassi and Penske cars in the top eight.

Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have won 7 of the 8 races run this season as well as the last three here. In fact, they’ve gone 1-2 in the last three races on the season and the last two years here.

Andretti, Penske and Ganassi have combined to win in all 8 races since 2016.

7 of the last 8 Mid-Ohio races have seen teammates on the podium.

2022: Penske-Ganassi-Penske

2021: Penske-Ganassi-Ganassi

2020 Race 1: Penske-Penske-Andretti

2020 Race 2: Andretti-Andretti-Andretti

2019: Ganassi-Ganassi-Andretti

2018: Andretti-SPM-Penske *

2017: Penske-Penske-RLL

2016: Penske-Penske-Andretti

That’s among the last 24 Mid-Ohio podiums, Penske has 11 of them (45.8%), Andretti with 7 (29.1%) and Ganassi 4 (16.6%). Between this trio, that’s 22 of the last 24 (91.6%).

This season, the podiums have gone:

Barber: Penske-Andretti-Penske

IMS: Ganassi-McLaren-McLaren

Road America: Ganassi-Penske-McLaren

With 80 laps, it’s a two stop strategy so long as it’s a dry race. But, if there’s any wet weather?