Poleman Herta led for 33 of the 55 laps and held a 1.2s lead over Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou at the start of the final stint.
But the fact he pitted a lap earlier than the majority of his rivals at the four-mile track meant he had to drive his car to a higher fuel number.
As he was forced to drop his pace to make it to the end, Palou passed him along with Josef Newgarden (Team Penske), Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren) and Scott Dixon (Ganassi).
“It was unclear to me, like, how the race was going to play out at that point,” said Herta of the decision to pit with 15 laps remaining. “It was hard to say what was going to happen on fuel numbers. I knew there was about 15 laps to go and that’s usually a pretty reasonable fuel number. But it ended up being quite a bit more.
“So, it’s a frustrating one. We had the best car, we were just cruising all the time, I had so much more in it but I never really got to show it because we were saving fuel and trying to go that lap later. So, it’s a killer.
“We still got a fifth out of it which is nice, not what we want though, so for that reason, it’s pretty frustrating.
“It does suck, it’s a top five at the end, which is nice points, but at the moment I couldn’t care less about it.”
Source: Autosport