Pato O’Ward held off a late-race challenge by Josef Newgarden in race one of the NTT INDYCAR Series double-header weekend at Iowa Speedway, in Newton, Iowa, located about 40 miles east of Des Moines.
“I’ve been waiting for this all year,” said O’Ward, winning his first race of the season, while making his 100th series start. “My 50th race was here at Iowa and it was the only other win I have here. I’m super happy to give Chevy their first win this year.
“Newgarden is King around here,” continued O’Ward, who finished runner-up to Newgarden six times. ”I’ve studied Josef and I know how to race him. We’ve had so many duels and he usually comes out on top. At this point in my career, I said ‘today is the day this is going to change.’ Josef has more experience than I do but I realize I’m pretty handy at certain ovals. We have a strong package and it is important to capitalize when we can get those wins. We just positioned ourselves to get it done.”
The key to O’Ward’s victory was pitting a lap after Newgarden and managing to hold off the American when he was up to speed and on hotter tires. It was the second-closest finish at Iowa, with a margin of 0.235 seconds in the 1 hour and 46 minute race.
A disappointed Newgarden led 232 laps, with a half-second lead early in the short track race, which he expanded to over a second mid-event. But a left-front tire miscue during his third and final pit stop helped O’Ward cycle in front as he left the pits.
“O’Ward got track position; it was as simple as that,” stated Newgarden, who was denied his seventh victory at Iowa, continuing the worst season of his career. “My car was quick. Team Chevy did a great job. Finally, a win for Team Chevy is a big deal. They should have had way more this year.”
Will Power gave Team Penske an additional podium by finishing third, his second podium of the year. All three Penske drivers have struggled for results, with Power ranked seventh in the title fight, Scott McLaughlin 10th, and Newgarden 14th after 11 of 17 races.
“We’ve always had the speed (this season),” explained Power, who led three laps and earned the 107th podium of his career. “It was a smooth day out there. A thank you to Conor Daly, who showed me you could use the higher lane. I really enjoyed the race. It was fun.”
Having crashed in qualifying, McLaughlin started 27th and came through the field to finish 4th, followed by Alex Palou in 5th.
There were five cautions for one spin and four crashes, which included Kyle Kirkwood, whose right-front tire went down due to the heavy loads on the 0.894-mile, 12 to 14-degree variable banking oval. Kirkwood drops to third in the title fight, with 322 points. O’Ward trails Palou by 105 points, 461 to 356. Still possible are 324 in the remaining six races.
Palou Takes the Victory in Race 2
Alex Palou had a much stronger and faster car in the second race of the doubleheader, his team making changes from what they learned during race one on the shortest oval of the season. Palou held off his teammate Scott Dixon by 0.528 seconds, with Marcus Armstrong finishing third.
“I’m speechless,” said Palou, who finally won his first short oval, his seventh win of the season. “It’s an unbelievable day and weekend. It’s an incredible year for us. I’ve struggled on short ovals. We were trying everything. The team gave me a crazy fuel number (to make). At the end of a stint, I struggled with my tires, losing one or two positions. We had amazing pit stops and strategy. This team gives me the opportunity to win every single weekend.
“This was the first time that I’m not getting overtaken every single lap on a short oval,” continued Palou. “There was a lot of traffic and I could see different people struggling in different areas. You would catch another car who was running the line you liked and then you would struggle for five to ten laps.”
Palou finished fifth in the first race, leading only four laps, but the Spaniard led 194 of the 275 laps in the second contest.
“We changed the front wing, front springs, rear springs and the ride height,” admitted Palou. “We evaluated what happened yesterday and learned. We thought we had an idea of how to win this race and how it was going to be better for us and the car. I just gave my engineer feedback and he makes the calls on what to change. I asked him if that was safe, he said, ‘Yes’, and it worked out.
“A short oval is a different animal, the same difference as a road course and a street course,” continued Palou. “It’s tough. That’s why it’s so fun to race in INDYCAR at these different tracks with different challenges. At Indy, the car just feels like you’re on a road course and you’re doing the fastest high-speed corner four times every lap. The way that you need to drive it is super smooth and you don’t want to over saturate the tires or the car. Then here, it’s the complete opposite. It’s like driving a crazy bull with all the bumps, the different tarmacs, and you need to drive it super hard.”
Already a three-time NTT INDYCAR champion, Palou has a 129-point lead over Pato O’Ward, leaving Iowa with five races remaining and 270 points still possible. After spending his first season with Dale Coyne Racing in 2020, Palou moved to Ganassi where the combination has been magically successful.
“Alex gives us all the options,” indicated Barry Wanser, Chip Ganassi Team Manager and Palou’s strategist. “When you look at strategy and options during the race, whether it’s before the race, the tire choice, the starting tire, the setup of the car, and what he has to do for us in the race to perform against everybody, he gives us all of those options. We’re never at a point where we can’t do part of the strategy.”
Like teammate Palou, Dixon and Armstrong made four pit stops and found themselves at the front when the fastest three Chevy’s pitted for fuel, four laps before the final caution, on Lap 262. There were five cautions, all for contact, totaling 58 laps.
“We definitely made a lot of changes to the car, throwing in the kitchen sink from yesterday to today,” described Dixon, a six-time INDYCAR champion, who moved up to third in the title fight. “We weren’t sure how it would go. I was frustrated yesterday about not being able to use the high line. Once dialed in, the car was pretty good, managed the stints well, and the tire life was good. That enabled us to save a bunch of fuel and extend the (fuel) windows when we needed to. Today was about catching the caution and going as long as possible. I was super-fast today. Had we had another stint, I could have challenged Alex.”
Armstrong ended the Iowa weekend with his first podium of the season.
“We made it happen,” said Armstrong, who moved to Meyer Shank Racing this year, a team that has a technical relationship with Ganassi. “We’ve been saving fuel for the last two races just waiting for a late yellow. I was pretty happy with our pace toward the end of the stints. We made a few changes and I thought it was a backward step but we were still strong. We’ve been getting better every single race. I’m gelling with my crew much better. This series is so competitive that you must be on it every single session and every single lap.”
Penske Struggles Continue
Once again, Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden looked super strong early in the race, able to put his car anywhere, leading 72 laps. But the driver known as ‘King of Corn Country’ for his dominance at Iowa was unlucky to pit just as the caution came out for Marcus Ericsson on Lap 130, due to another Andretti right-front tire failure.
With laps taking only 17 to 18 seconds, pitting under green dropped the American a lap down as everyone else was able to pit under yellow. Then, with 26 laps to go and having fought his way back into the lead, Newgarden pitted under green for fuel, along with other top Chevy drivers David Malukas and Pato O’Ward. But Honda gave its drivers better fuel mileage, allowing Palou, Dixon, and Armstrong to wait, pitting under the final caution and not losing any positions.
Newgarden finished 10th, the best of the Penske drivers, as Scott McLaughlin was caught in Devlin DeFrancesco’s spin on the first lap and Will Power had a mechanical issue, completing only 21 laps.
Wild Weather
The weekend began with a shelter-in-place at Iowa Speedway on Friday due to a nearby tornado. There were no weather delays for the races themselves.
tornado siren warnings could be heard at the track for several hours. CREDIT: Penske Entertainment/Chris Owens
Indy Toronto is next
Toronto’s Devlin DeFrancesco started 20th and finished 19th in the first race. He then started 23rd and finished 25th in race two, due to a spin on the first lap.
“All the passing is done on starts and restarts here so we really need to capitalize on those,” stated DeFrancesco. “Our car at the end of the stint tends to be very strong. But at the start of the stints, we seem to struggle to fire up the tires. (In the second race), we were just extremely loose from the word go. I was saving it through Turn 1, and when I went right on the weight jacker in Turn 3, we just lost it. For sure, there’s something amiss because that was not normal.”
Next up, the 27 drivers and 11 teams head north for the Honda Indy Toronto street race on July 20th.
