Newgarden sweeps Iowa weekend with dominant victory in second race

Josef Newgarden’s mastery of the Iowa Speedway continued on Sunday, as he completed a sweep of the weekend’s two races with a dominant win in the second 250-lap encounter at Iowa.

The Penske driver had more than enough to hold off team mate Will Power and McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist in a three-lap shootout to decide the winner. A sluggish restart from Rosenqvist gave championship leader Alex Palou the opportunity to slide up into third place in the final laps and maintain an 80-point lead in the IndyCar championship with five rounds to go.

A 0.709-second margin of victory didn’t tell the full story of Newgarden’s dominance in Sunday’s race. He first took the lead from pole winner Power on lap 31, then drove away from the field and proceeded to lead 212 out of the remaining 220 laps on the way to his fourth win of the season. All those have come on ovals, after his victories at Texas Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500.

A late caution when Ryan Hunter-Reay tagged the wall out of turn four might have been the only potential pitfall in Newgarden’s quest for victory, once the Safety Car was withdrawn with three laps remaining. But the two-time series champion nailed the final restart to secure the win.

Penske also made it a one-two finish for the second straight race as Power finished second. Palou went from fifth to third on the final restart. The IndyCar points leader fell off the lead lap multiple times in another fast-paced race, but his Chip Ganassi Racing crew made the right calls on strategy and adjustments to help him get back towards the front – aided by some key wave-arounds after cautions.

Palou’s lead in the championship was reduced by 37 points over these two races, from 117 to 80 – but the last-lap dash to the podium did mitigate some of the damage, and he still has more than a race’s worth of points over the field.

Rosenqvist slipped to fourth at the end while McLaughlin, the last car to finish on the lead lap, came home in fifth.

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Scott Dixon finished in sixth place, ahead of Colton Herta, David Malukas, Marcus Ericsson and Pato O’Ward in tenth. Dixon sits third in the championship standings, with O’Ward in fourth, and Ericsson in fifth, all of them over 100 points in arrears.

Rookie Agustin Canapino brought out the first caution of the race when he clipped the wall out of turn two on lap 87. Canapino finished the race, 14 laps down in 26th. Takuma Sato also had a strike against the wall at the same corner and went to the pits for repairs – he ultimately finished 25th, 13 laps down. Canapino is 29 points behind the absent Marcus Armstrong in the Rookie of the Year standings.

On lap 157, there was a bizarre incident involving rookie Sting Ray Robb, who was released from his pit stall with his right-rear wheel not fully secured. The wheel rolled loose and bounced right in front of several cars, and the caution flag came out for the second time to retrieve the loose wheel. Robb was disqualified from the race for his team’s infraction.

Robb wasn’t the only rookie to have a woeful Sunday afternoon: Benjamin Pedersen was disqualified by race control for falling below the minimum 105% speed late in the race.

Newgarden recorded his sixth career win at Iowa to extend his personal record at the short oval. With two wins in two races, he becomes the first IndyCar driver to sweep a double-header weekend since Graham Rahal at Detroit Belle Isle in 2017.

The series moves on to Newgarden’s home round on the Nashville Street Circuit in Tennessee on August 6th, which in its short history on the calendar has never failed to produce an eventful race.

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Iowa 250 (Race 2) results

Position	Car	Driver	Team	Engine
1	2	Josef Newgarden	Penske	Chevrolet
2	12	Will Power	Penske	Chevrolet
3	10	Alex Palou	Ganassi	Honda
4	6	Felix Rosenqvist	McLaren	Chevrolet
5	3	Scott McLaughlin	Penske	Chevrolet
6	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi	Honda
7	26	Colton Herta	Andretti	Honda
8	18	David Malukas	Coyne/HMD	Honda
9	8	Marcus Ericsson	Ganassi	Honda
10	5	Pato O’Ward	McLaren	Chevrolet
11	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti	Honda
12	28	Romain Grosjean	Andretti	Honda
13	45	Christian Lundgaard	RLL	Honda
14	77	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
15	7	Alexander Rossi	McLaren	Chevrolet
16	06	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank	Honda
17	60	Conor Daly	Meyer Shank	Honda
18	21	Rinus VeeKay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
19	30	Jack Harvey	RLL	Honda
20	15	Graham Rahal	RLL	Honda
21	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti	Honda
22	14	Santino Ferrucci	Foyt	Chevrolet
23	33	Ed Carpenter	Carpenter	Chevrolet
24	20	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
25	11	Takuma Sato	Ganassi	Honda
26	78	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
27 (DQ)	55	Benjamin Pedersen	Foyt	Chevrolet
28 (DQ)	51	Sting Ray Robb	Coyne/RWR	Honda

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IndyCar

• McLaughlin and Power put Penske back on top with one-two
• McLaughlin denies Power pole position to lead Penske one-two in Barber
• Newgarden admits he “failed my team miserably” over disqualification
• Ghiotto gets 11th hour call-up for IndyCar debut at Barber
• McLaughlin and Power accept penalties over misuse of push-to-pass system

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