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Guerrieri Wins Indy Lights Freedom 100

Speedway, IN – Esteban Guerrieri scored his second Firestone Indy Lights season win here Saturday, beating Carlos Munoz by 0.0352 sec. to win the Firestone Freedom 100, 40-lap sprint at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Guerrieri started last in the 18-car field after an engine change and avoided a five-car crash in turn two on the fourth lap to notch the fourth-straight Freedom 100 win for Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

The victory propelled Guerrieri into the series points lead by 14 points over third-place finisher Tristan Vautier.

“It was one of those weekends that I trusted I was going to finish well even though I qualified bad (11th, resulting in a precautionary engine change),” said the first Argentinian to win an event at IMS. “I’m overjoyed – from first to last.”

A red flag for a five-car incident on lap four slowed the winner’s march to the front, but by lap 23 he had secured second behind Victor Carbone and then the freight train fight for the lead was on as Guerrieri, Munoz, Vautier and Victor Carbone joined several other cars in a battle for top-ten spots.

“My engineer, Tim Neff, told me to be patient, that everything would happen on the last five laps,” said the now five-time career winner.

Guerrieri took the lead for good on lap 38, as Munoz snatched second in a daring high-low move around Vautier in turn one.

Neff was partly correct when Jorge Goncalvez car hit the SAFER Barrier in turn two one lap later, bringing out the final caution and securing Guerrieri’s win over Munoz as the race finished under the caution flag for the fourth time in ten races.

“I’m really happy in my first oval race to finish second. We were overtaking all the time for second, third, fourth,” said Munoz. “I knew the race was in the last laps, but he beat me to the win.”

The lap four crash involving five drivers, including Emerson Newton-John, resulted in a twelve minute red flag to clear the track in turn two. “It was just a gaggle of cars doing pretty ridiculous things. Two of them got together, but I was close to getting out of it, but the thing broke loose,” said Newton-John, the nephew of singer and actress Olivia Newton-John who is in town to be the Grand Marshal of Saturday’s 500 parade. She was also the honorary starter for today’s race.

Sebastian Saavedra finished fifth. He will race in the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, the only driver performing double duty in the 100 and 500 this year.

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