IndyCar

Winners and losers from controversial Gateway IndyCar race

by Jack Benyon
11 min read

A fiery Gateway race offered all the drama you’d want from an IndyCar oval event: a major team-mate spat, contentious stewards’ decisions, a rookie coming from 18th to third, strategies within strategies and even a rare Will Power 'bird' sighting - to his team-mate!

Before the race the test had hinted this would be a processional snoozefest, but Gateway delivered another phenomenal race where the higher line on the track was accessible and even beneficial for some, something that hasn’t been the case at this track or others in current IndyCar.

We pick out some of the winners and losers from a rollercoaster race that ended with just five cars on the lead lap and only 17 cars finishing.

Winner: Josef Newgarden

When Josef Newgarden’s car's rear end started to lose grip, he must have thought back to last year when he crashed pushing too hard trying to use the high line of the racetrack (watch that incident on the video below).

But this time he pulled off an incredible save and his reward was two-fold: he didn’t lose many spots in his following pitstop due to cars being mixed up in the order and everyone beyond eighth being a lap down, plus it played out that the fuel saving he and his car hadn’t been able to work as well as his rivals was no longer required.

A sprint to the finish would always favour Newgarden who has won four of the last five races at Gateway - last year’s crash costing him a chance there - and 10 of the last 15 oval races stretching back to 2021.

In a year where a disqualification scandal has caused controversy and friction in the paddock for Team Penske, it’s no surprise Newgarden’s win came with contention.

Under a slow late restart paced by Newgarden his team-mate and championship rival Power was taken out. Power flipped Newgarden his trademark ‘bird’ insult and after the race Newgarden said he hated that had happened, but he felt his restart pace was within the rules and not his fault.

Without that St Pete scandal, Newgarden would be around fourth in the standings, so it shows you how costly that situation was as he's only eighth.

Winner: Alex Palou

Not much to say here - it was the most Alex Palou drive ever - although don't confuse his ability to get to the end of the race with total risk aversion as the three-wide picture above shows, with Palou in the middle!

He successfully stuck with the better strategy in the first three-quarters of the race and drove very sensibly in the final part, narrowly avoiding the Power/Alexander Rossi crash by fortunately moving out of line just after the green flag as you can see below.

Points before Gateway
1 Palou 411
2 Power - 49
3 Dixon - 53
4 Herta - 57
5 O’Ward -74
6 McLaughlin -83

Points after Gateway
1 Palou 443
2 Herta -59
3 Dixon -65
4 Power -56
5 McLaughlin -73
6 O’Ward -98

Palou was also rewarded by not racing his team-mate Linus Lundqvist too hard late on. Ideally Ganassi would have told its rookie to remain behind Palou, but it gave no such order, and Lundqvist went and passed Palou and Colton Herta - who got a penalty for blocking. So Palou ended up fourth and better than where he would have been without conceding to Lundqvist if they had team orders.

Palou's 59 points in the lead and his oval record this year reads podium, two top fives and, admittedly, a crash. But there’s no sign of the oval weakness that many thought would derail his championship. Each week it feels like he gets a little bit further ahead and with his lead, that’s all he needs.

The only thing unfamiliar about this race was his new paint scheme.

Losers: Palou’s title rivals

Herta is now Palou’s closest contender but lost points to him in this race.

Pato O’Ward retired early on with a loss of coolant pressure, Scott Dixon was pinned two laps down after a strategy gamble didn’t pay off and he finished 11th. Power crashed out. Scott McLaughlin is too far back and needed the win but did at least finish second. Kyle Kirkwood retired after a crash despite starting in the top 10.

A big reason Palou has been able to consolidate the championship lead this year - apart from being amazing, obviously! - is that no single rival contender has come to the fore. Many have been trading blows and stealing points from each other while Palou has managed to mostly remain consistent.

Power had been second heading into this race and probably should have taken more points, but it wasn't to be with his crash.

Even after Palou's Iowa race one crash when his lead dropped to 37, its lowest point in a while, over the following four races no one took the reins and his lead went from 35 to 49 to now 59.

He needs to be outscored by 14.75 points per race on average for the rest of the season with one of his best tracks at Portland up next and then two tracks most of the field haven’t been to (Milwaukee and the Nashville oval).

This felt like a big opportunity for Palou’s rivals but no one could strike and he was too good for it to matter anyway.

Winner: Colton Herta

A good test and practice form was not delivered upon as Herta crashed out of qualifying, when his Andretti team-mates and the Meyer Shank team it shares a technical partnership with were all in the top 10.

After a costly crash at the Indianapolis 500 this year and almost another one at Iowa where he pulled off an incredible save, another oval shunt wasn’t what he needed.

However, he delivered one of the best starts to a race I have ever seen. It felt like watching a video game. He carved through the field like the difficulty setting was set to easy (watch below).

He stayed on the leaders’ strategy and raced hard with Palou for a large portion of the race. He becomes Palou’s closest rival in the championship now after two years of relative title-bid obscurity.

His only blot was a clear block on Lundqvist that bordered on dangerous and turned a result where he would have taken points away from Palou to one where he lost points, dropping from a position ahead to a position behind his title rival in the race sult.

For the latter reason you could mark him a loser, but after everything he overcame, this felt like a strong day that deserved a positive acknowledgement even if it was far from a perfect weekend.

Losers: Marcus Ericsson, Kyle Kirkwood

I have a theory that Marcus Ericsson might have won this race when it was all said and done.

Of course, many things could have happened. But such was his ability to save fuel - even more than Dixon at times on the same strategy, which is unheard of - that he might have been able to avoid a splash and dash late on.

Late cautions might have meant that didn't matter, but it's still an interesting alternative conclusion.

Certainly a good result was lost with an electrical issue, and similarly his Andretti team-mate Kirkwood had his worst result of the year with his crash.

Ericsson especially will be gutted because he hasn’t seen ‘Lady Luck’ visit his garage once this year.

Winner: Sting Ray Robb

There are plenty of drivers out there who would do a better job in IndyCar than Sting Ray Robb based off his performances in his first two years, but he looked every bit the deserving IndyCar driver at Gateway.

He was dicing inside the top 10 for much of the race despite starting 24th. While he ended up on a different strategy to the leaders, he combined keeping his nose clean with genuine pace and was rewarded by moving his AJ Foyt entry one spot higher in the Leaders’ Circle standings.

Leaders’ Circle fight - top 22 cars get $1million from IndyCar
19 #66 Meyer Shank (Malukas) 154
20 #30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan (Fittipaldi) 151
21 #41 AJ Foyt Racing (Robb) 144
22 #20 Ed Carpenter (Carpenter & Rasmussen) 136
OUT OF LEADERS’ CIRCLE
23 #78 Juncos Hollinger (Daly) 133
24 #51 Dale Coyne (Katherine Legge/Toby Sowery) 120
25 #18 Dale Coyne (Harvey) 101

Conor Daly and the #78 Juncos Hollinger car was their closest rival and Daly started ninth, only for an early crash to send both JHR cars down the order with Romain Grosjean caught in it too.

Daly fought back to 13th to limit the damage and is only three points off Ed Carpenter’s car, which drops behind Robb - providing a buffer for the Foyt entry.

Daly replaced Agustin Canapino ahead of this race. Ovals have been a struggle this year for the JHR team but Gateway will give it hope it's made a step forwards in pace.

Loser: David Malukas

It was heartbreaking to watch David Malukas choke back tears in his post-crash interview, and even more so after he revealed Power “screamed” at him after their contact which took Malukas out.

Judge this one for yourself, but it’s very clear to me that this was Power’s fault and he deserved a penalty for it.

Malukas famously has two podiums in two starts at Gateway, and who knows if he would have had anything for the seemingly dominant Penske cars at the end. But to see it end that way was rough.

I’m sure the emotion of having his wrist injury and being dropped by McLaren, only to bounce back for Meyer Shank and sign for Foyt next year, was all playing into that tear-strained interview.

It was costly in the Leaders’ Circle but he has the pace whereby it shouldn’t be a worry.

His Shank team-mate Felix Rosenqvist ended a tough run with sixth after rebounding from a nine-place grid penalty that dropped him back from starting second. He hadn't been in the top 10 for six races prior to this.

Winner: Linus Lundqvist (hopefully)

Go back and read this feature for a full debrief, but the overview here is that Linus Lundqvist just delivered another podium amid having to fight for his IndyCar future.

He was on an off-sync strategy but remained around the top 10, took advantage of the cautions, stopped under the final one then straight drove around Palou and Herta like he was in fast forward to take the podium.

Lundqvist is the first rookie since Grosjean to take two podiums in his debut season.

He’s suffered from so much ill fortune this season but he’s shown enough to deserve to stay in IndyCar.

Fellow rookie Nolan Siegel, short of crashing into Jack Harvey with 10 laps to go and receiving a pitlane speed penalty that could have kept him in contention on the lead lap later on too, was also strong on his way to a career-best seventh with Arrow McLaren.

Losers: IndyCar stewards

They aren’t losers because they got everything wrong, but they certainly received plenty of attention during this race.

First for the Power/Malukas incident, where it’s clear Power doesn’t leave Malukas room and causes the crash.

Then the officials were criticised for not penalising another Team Penske car in Newgarden for his slow restart - but they reported that he stayed at a constant 80mph, so presumably didn’t see anything wrong with it - and then later penalised Herta for blocking.

Ultimately the stewards made mostly the right calls apart from the Power/Malukas crash. Newgarden didn’t break any rules on the restart, and it’s up to the other drivers to react.

The restart procedure and rules are looked at almost race by race so I expect the same here, but as much as people have criticised Newgarden’s restart, the drivers trying to get a jump need to be acknowledged for getting it wrong, too.

Trying to get a jump on the car ahead but then causing a crash isn’t ideal.

This feels more like the discontent bubbling under in IndyCar this year. The St Pete Team Penske disqualification was the final straw for many who feel like that team gets preferential treatment from the stewards, and its umbrella company also owns the series.

In this instance, IndyCar should have penalised Power, but that was a contentious incident that isn’t as black and white as they would have liked. Herta's was a clear violation of the blocking rule and that's why it was an easy decision.

Had these calls been made for other teams, there wouldn't be the implication of some sort of conspiracy. And ultimately in this case IndyCar either made the right decisions or you can see the reasoning for what did happen.

Loser: Dale Coyne Racing

Coyne has struggled this year under the weight of constant driver changes, combined with years of its top personnel being pillaged by the top teams.

To give just two very quick examples, Michael Cannon is now the technical director engineering Foyt’s resurgence and Ross Bunnell now engineers Dixon at Ganassi. Both were key to Coyne not long ago.

Katherine Legge made a mistake and took out Ed Carpenter early on, Carpenter got back in the race and was the last car to finish in 17th - which may well be crucial for that car’s Leaders’ Circle position.

The other car - which failed to qualify for the Indy 500 in Siegel’s hands - is further back in that championship points race, but its current driver Harvey was on for 12th or better before being hit - ironically by Siegel - with 10 laps to go on a restart.

After a string of races fighting a back injury that finally put him out at Iowa and Toronto, it was a heartbreaking situation for Harvey who had fought admirably to that point before being punted.

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