The NTT IndyCar Series was at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for Sunday afternoon’s Honda Indy 200. Josef Newgarden won the pole on Saturday, beating Colton Herta. Newgarden was looking for his first win of the season.
On the opening lap, Scott Dixon tried to take a position at turn five. However, he quickly backed out, leading to a three-car pileup involving Ryan Hunter-Reay, Felix Rosenqvist, and James Hinchcliffe. This was the cause for the first caution. Next, Hinchcliffe hit Hunter-Reay, causing both cars to spin. While Rosenqvist spun, trying to avoid the accident, but made contact. Reay and Rosenqvist were out of the race.
The race restarted on the third lap. Will Power and Scott Dixon were battling for the fourth position when one lap later, Dixon hit Power at turn five. This sent Power around as his tire smoke billowed into the air. This left the other drivers blinded before Ed Jones hit him that brought out the second caution. The race resumed on the eighth lap.
Josef Newgarden pulled away on the restart. On the tenth lap, Romain Grosjean almost lost the car at turn two, battling Sebastien Bourdais for the ninth position. Grosjean was able to keep his car on the asphalt. Despite getting loose, Grosjean only lost one position to eleventh.
Newgarden led the opening 29 laps before making his first scheduled pit stop leaving Colton Herta as the new leader. Herta stayed out a couple of laps more before pitting. During the pit stop, Herta’s team was filling the gas tank and took 25 seconds on pit road. When he left pit road, he was in ninth place, and Newgarden took over the lead.
On lap 53, Newgarden made his second scheduled stop as Marcus Ericsson took over the lead. Once Ericsson made his stop, Colton Herta was the new leader. However, on Herta’s next stop, his car stalled before he could get back out on the track.
In the closing laps, Marcus Ericsson was chipping away at Newgarden’s lead every lap. He was trailing by .707 seconds to Newgarden on the last lap. Marcus Ericsson ran out of time as Newgarden won his first race of the season by .8790 seconds over Ericsson. Newgarden’s win was a day later on the 50th anniversary of Team Penske’s first win on July 3rd, 1971, at Pocono Raceway with Mark Donahue.
The rest of the top ten finishers were Alex Palou third, Scott Dixon fourth, Alexander Rossi fifth, Graham Rahal sixth, Romain Grosjean seventh, Pato O’Ward eighth, Santino Ferrucci ninth, and Takuma Sato tenth. Newgarden led 73 laps, the most in the race. There were five lead changes and two cautions for six laps.
The NTT IndyCar Series will have a month off before making its debut on the streets of Nashville for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on Sunday, August 8th, at 5:30 pm on NBCSN.
