IndyCar

Newgarden wins incident-filled IndyCar Gateway thriller despite spin

by Jack Benyon
5 min read

Josef Newgarden rebounded from a spin during the race to win a thrilling Gateway event after he was accused of a slow restart that took his championship-contending team-mate Will Power out of the race.

A Scott Dixon attempt at one of his crazy fuel-saving strategies, David Malukas’s run of podiums ending after he was fighting for victory with Power, Scott McLaughlin losing out in a straight fight to Newgarden on an oval again and a rookie on the podium for the second time this year showed just how wild this race was.

Alex Palou did his usual ‘stay out of trouble and ghost into a top five’ as usual, extending his championship lead to 59 points, as his rivals failed to take a significant chunk out of his lead again.

Given the pre-event test hinted at this race being tough to overtake on and likely a snoozefest, it was anything but.

How Newgarden won it

The whole race was turned on its head when Team Penske team-mates McLaughlin and Newgarden were fighting for the lead through traffic when Newgarden had to take avoiding action of Palou and spun, which brought out a caution on lap 197/260.

McLaughlin - who dominated most of the race - and Newgarden pitted and only fell to third and fourth respectively because drivers eighth and below were a lap down and so much traffic was split up between the field that they could stop and get back out without losing too many spots.

Power and Malukas stayed out initially with the race restarting with 55 laps to go, but after just over 10 laps both Power and Malukas bailed and pitted falling to seventh and ninth respectively. It did at least give them the chance to fight back through.

More drama occurred between the Penske drivers as McLaughlin and Newgarden realised they’d need a stop to make the end too, and Power and Malukas were so fast after their stops that they had the chance to negate their deficit on the road.

But with 20 laps to go, Malukas and Power collided at Turn 1 - with Power appearing to squeeze Malukas leading to the latter spinning into the wall - and that brought out the caution. Malukas has finished on the podium in both his Gateway starts and was choking back tears after the incident.

Newgarden’s crew pulled off a scintillating 5.1s stop to put him in the lead over McLaughlin at the caution, but on the restart, a concertina effect led to Alexander Rossi hitting Power from behind taking both out of the action, Power being the driver second in the championship prior to this race.

Colton Herta and Power appeared to blame Newgarden for the slow start although IndyCar didn’t think it was breaking the rules.

Only a miraculous decision to fall out of line at the green flag saved Palou from being caught in that incident.

After a lengthy red flag the race restarted with six laps to go, and Newgarden executed a fantastic restart including a sweeping snaking move from one side of the track to the other to break the tow of his team-mate and scarper up the road.

Double Indy 500 winner Newgarden has won seven oval races since his last road and street course win in 2022, it’s hard to argue his credentials as the series’ best oval driver. The win takes him to the 10th most in the series' history.

McLaughlin bags good points for his championship but misses out on a second oval win after Iowa, and said that his hybrid device wasn’t working on the last restart.

Rounding out the podium for the second time this year was rookie Linus Lundqvist, who appears likely to lose his seat next year if Ganassi reduces its number of cars, but he definitely shouldn’t given his performances which also includes a pole position at Road America earlier this year to go with his Barber podium.

He passed Palou and got past a combative Herta with five laps to cap off a brilliant drive.

Herta was judged to have blocked Lundqvist so got dropped back a place, promoting the ever-fortunate Palou another place to fourth!

Not this time, Dixon!

On multiple occasions throughout his career Scott Dixon has demanded the awe and respect of his rivals by pulling off seemingly impossible fuel-saving strategies - he even did it here at Gateway last year!

He tried something similar from 19th on the grid whereby he stopped under early cautions to fill up with fuel in a bid to do one less stop than the leaders later in the race.

However, Dixon lost so much time-saving fuel that it negated avoiding a pitstop, and his race was totally ruined when he got pinned two laps down because he pitted on lap 195 and then a caution almost immediately came out.

Finishing 11th is a crucial blow for Dixon’s championship hopes as he drops to third, 65 points adrift of Palou.

O’Ward misery, strong Siegel

Pato O’Ward had qualified 11th but started eighth after grid penalties and was almost immediately challenging for the top five as you may expect for a driver of his form at Gateway.

However, on lap 42/260 O’Ward headed to the pits with an engine-related issue. He had been fifth in the championship and 71 points behind Alex Palou, but is now sixth, 98 points behind. This coupled with his spin in Toronto has made for a nightmare last pair of races.

Nolan Siegel, the rookie McLaren elected to replace Theo Pourchaire, had easily his best run at McLaren so far. He was on the Dixon strategy initially but was able to get a good track position and the difference was his run on the last restart where he had a good restart and passed two more cars in the run to the chequered flag.

He'd picked up a pitlane speeding penalty earlier in the race which forced a drive-through, but this was his most impressive race so far in terms of race pace.

Robb’s top 10 crucial for Leaders’ Circle

In what felt like his most assured performance in IndyCar too, Sting Ray Robb took his best finish in ninth and it’s crucial for maintaining that team’s position in the top 22 which awards $1 million from IndyCar at the end of the year.

The car closest to bumping Robb out is the #78 Juncos Hollinger car, which started ninth but was caught in an early wreck, only Daly was able to fight back and make use of the cautions to finish 13th, lowering the blow.

Points standings

1 Alex Palou 443
2 Colton Herta -59
3 Scott Dixon -65
4 Will Power -56
5 Scott McLaughlin -73
6 Pato O'Ward -98

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