IndyCar

Newgarden completes Iowa double but Palou comes through to third

by Jack Benyon
6 min read

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden took a second IndyCar victory in a row at Iowa, his sixth at the track, and cut Alex Palou’s championship lead to 80 points in the process – but not without a late caution creating a tense showdown.

Newgarden won from third in the weekend’s first race on Saturday, answering any questions onlookers had over Penske skipping an Iowa test attended by most of its rivals last month.

Despite his five previous Iowa wins and four IndyCar oval victories in a row, some questioned how long it would take Newgarden to get to the front from seventh this time or whether he could even do so, but it took just 30 of the 250 laps to get to the front, capped off by a double overtake in the same corner on his team-mates for the lead.

A caution on lap 87 shown when Agustin Canapino brushed the wall reset the field and gave Newgarden some clean air before having to catch and pass traffic again.

Newgarden handled it with ease – after fending off a racy Scott McLaughlin on the restart – and built another six-second lead before the penultimate pitstops.

Just after those stops a caution bunched the field again for Sting Ray Robb’s wheel coming off after a woeful Dale Coyne pitstop.

The 20kg wheel rolled up the race track and almost hit half of the field as the drivers avoided the moving target while at upwards of 130mph midway through a banked corner, with Conor Daly and Alexander Rossi especially showing great skill to avoid the wheel. Robb was disqualified almost immediately after the incident.

That split strategies as McLaughlin, Pato O’Ward, Palou, Kyle Kirkwood and Romain Grosjean stopped under the caution – placing them ninth to 13th on the restart – which required those drivers to make use of the fresh tyres to fight back through.

McLaughlin was predictably the biggest mover and carved back through into the top three, but after the final stops with around 50 laps to go he emerged in fourth and began really struggling with his car.

A new challenger came to the fore though with Felix Rosenqvist – admitting last week in Toronto he was willing to take risks to go for a win given his points deficit – having a brilliant penultimate stint and emerging right on Newgarden’s tail after the final stops with a boost from a one-lap undercut.

Felix Rosenqvist Hy Vee Homefront 250 Presented By Instacart By Joe Skibinski Large Image Without Watermark M87714

Rosenqvist appeared to have the pace, but he chose the wrong line and was cut off by Graham Rahal while trying to lap him which gave Newgarden the breathing room he needed to escape from the McLaren driver, until a caution with 10 laps to go for Ryan Hunter-Reay hitting the wall.

With five cars on the lead lap, it’s possible the pits could have opened for fresh tyres, but IndyCar elected to try and ensure a finish under green flag conditions by keeping the pits shut.

Newgarden got a phenomenal restart to sail away for a textbook victory, despite the late pressure.

It marked his fourth win of the season, tying Palou’s benchmark, although the points gap went from as low as 67 back to 80 by the end of the race with Palou’s late charge to third. The gap between the pair started at 126 points this weekend, with Newgarden’s double ensuring a 46-point swing.

On the late restart, Power attacked Rosenqvist and pushed him up high into the marbles, which dropped him back to fourth place at the finish.

Power therefore took second ahead of the incredible Palou, who came seemingly from nowhere to take third.

The Ganassi driver was rarely out of the top 10 although he did fall back on the second stint complaining about that set of tyres and his car swinging from understeer to barely being able to control its oversteer.

Alex Palou Hy Vee Homefront 250 Presented By Instacart By Joe Skibinski Large Image Without Watermark M87679

But at each stop his Ganassi crew improved his car and the stop under the penultimate caution helped improve his car even further.

Rosenqvist had an average finish of 15th heading into this race and was robbed of a third podium of the year as he looks to put himself in position to stay on the grid next year, with Meyer Shank Racing looking like a more and more feasible option for the Swede.

McLaughlin was fifth for Penske and the last driver on the lead lap.

Dixon took sixth ahead of Colton Herta – who rebounds from a poor pitstop wrecking his race on Saturday – with David Malukas completing the top eight for Coyne.

Marcus Ericsson and Pato O’Ward rounded out the top 10. O’Ward dropped from sixth in the penultimate stint and was clearly struggling with the handling of his car.

AJ Foyt rookie Benjamin Pedersen was stood down from the race by race control due to a “failure to participate at competitive speed“.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 250 212 1h40m25.736s 19.105s 4 53
2 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 250 30 +0.705s 18.998s 4 42
3 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 250 0 +2.686s 19.448s 5 35
4 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 250 2 +4.116s 19.205s 4 33
5 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 250 2 +7.889s 19.18s 5 31
6 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 249 1 +1 lap 19.414s 5 29
7 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 249 0 +1 lap 19.65s 5 26
8 David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing/HMD Motorsports Dallara DW12-Honda 249 0 +1 lap 19.386s 5 24
9 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 249 3 +1 lap 19.147s 5 23
10 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 249 0 +1 lap 19.377s 6 20
11 Kyle Kirkwood Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 249 0 +1 lap 19.83s 6 19
12 Romain Grosjean Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 249 0 +1 lap 19.956s 6 18
13 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 249 0 +1 lap 19.516s 5 17
14 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 248 0 +2 laps 19.9s 5 16
15 Alexander Rossi Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 248 0 +2 laps 19.797s 5 15
16 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 248 0 +2 laps 19.741s 5 14
17 Conor Daly Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 248 0 +2 laps 19.522s 5 13
18 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 248 0 +2 laps 19.717s 5 12
19 Jack Harvey Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 247 0 +3 laps 19.663s 5 11
20 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 247 0 +3 laps 19.884s 5 10
21 Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 246 0 +4 laps 20.19s 5 9
22 Santino Ferrucci AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 245 0 +5 laps 20.21s 6 8
23 Ed Carpenter Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 244 0 +6 laps 19.827s 5 7
24 Ryan Hunter-Reay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 237 0 +13 laps 20.047s 5 6
25 Takuma Sato Chip Ganassin Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 237 0 +13 laps 19.6s 6 5
26 Agustín Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 236 0 +14 laps 19.731s 8 5
Benjamin Pedersen AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 193 0 DNF 20.409s 5 5
Sting Ray Robb Dale Coyne Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 152 0 DNF 20.426s 3 5
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