We’re halfway through the 2021 Indy Lights campaign now, and DirtFish’s Benjamin Pedersen is in with a shout of a top-five finish in his maiden season in the IndyCar feeder series.
Last time out Pedersen equalled his best result of the season, taking second in a thrilling opening race at Road America – one of the most popular tracks not just in the US, but the world.
Pedersen started the first race of the weekend in 10th but wasted no time in climbing up the field. He was quickly on the tail of the four-car fight for the lead, and by lap six – with the lead battle taking its toll on those drivers and their tires – he was the fastest driver in the field.
“I could see the guys ahead of me were battling, having big lockups, big slides, and I knew that was going to kill [the tires] later in the race,” Pedersen told DirtFish.
“So I stayed right with them during that period, but I was super, super deliberate with not getting involved with anything, any battle that I don’t need to be a part of or over pushing the tire, because I knew they would just eventually fall off, which is exactly what happened.
“They fought early, they destroyed their tires and then I kind of kept contained and I knew it would come to me. And then [in] the last two segments of the race, the car was just super good compared to everyone else, and that pretty much allowed us to move forward.”
Pressuring Toby Sowery, Pedersen soon made light work of the fourth-placed man and it didn’t take long to close what was, by then, a sizable gap for third either. A solid result was already on the cards, helped further by the retirement of second-placed runner Alex Peroni, but Pedersen wasn’t done.
In the closing stages of the race, his tires perfectly managed, he piled the pressure on his championship-challenging team-mate Linus Lundqvist and got by him.
“Obviously as team-mates, I think there was a lot of respect between us because it was super clean racing,” Pedersen said. “Linus just kept it super clean and I respect him a lot for that and I would do the same for him.
“I think the pass wasn’t on the easier side, but you just had to be assertive and I knew it would happen.”
If you push too hard in the start of the race or make big mistakes or have big slides, the tire just completely goes away and you're going to be in no man's landBenjamin Pederson
Road America comes with its own set of unique challenges, but Pedersen feels he was perfectly prepared for those challenges – linked to the specific-tire compound that’s a lot thinner than at other venues. That tire needs looking after and Pedersen managed that perfectly last week.
“If you push too hard in the start of the race or make big mistakes or have big slides, the tire just completely goes away and you’re going to be in no man’s land,” he explained. “So we knew the whole time that in the races tire management was going to be huge.
“I started 10th, worked away all the way up to second, but really the details that went into that race were staying clean on the first lap, but still being aggressive, and then just watching the tires all the time.”
As regular readers of this series will know, Pederson has dovetailed his rise up the open-wheel ladder with regular classes at DirtFish rally school in Snoqualmie, and that proved to be a big help too.
“I think what helped me a lot, I’d say I have – and definitely it’s something I’ve developed at DirtFish as well, training there – I would say I’m one of the more sensitive drivers in the car in terms of what I can feel.
“I would say I can feel when the car is starting to slide a lot earlier, maybe than some other drivers. And for that reason, especially during the race, like when you’re talking about the slip angle and how much you’re sliding the tire, it’s having that super-sensitive feeling.
“For sure, that is a huge factor in that race to be able to just constantly monitor how much are you really using the tire.”
Pedersen backed up the podium result with seventh (up from ninth) in race two on Sunday, and he heads into the second half of the season ninth in the points, but only four adrift of fifth in what is a very closely-fought battle.
“My hunger is definitely to try and get into the top-five, top-four, maybe even top-three, you never know what can happen,” he said. “But I think as a rookie that’s definitely expectations met for my rookie year in Indy Lights.”
