Josef Newgarden led 138 laps on his way to his second win of the season at Saturday night’s Bommarito Automotive Auto Group 500 at Wide World Technology Raceway at Gateway. He beat Pato O’Ward by .5397 seconds. It was his third career win at Wide World Technology Raceway at Gateway.
Team Penske’s Will Power won the pole in qualifying two hours before the race started. He led the opening lap before Colton Herta took the lead. The race had three cautions in the first twenty-five laps, including contact between Graham Rahal and Ed Jones, debris, and a light malfunction.
Two top contending teams were taken out on lap 65 in a three-car crash at turn one between Scott Dixon, the points leader Alex Palou, and Rinus VeeKay. VeeKay got loose, then made contact with Palou and Palou made contact with Dixon for the fifth caution of the night. Dixon’s 28 consecutive race streak ended with a 19th place finish.
Late in the race, Colton Herta broke a rear suspension leaving pit road that ended his day and he finished in 18th place. Then, after Alexander Rossi’s crash brought out the sixth caution, Sebastien Bourdais stayed out for an extra two laps before pitting, and Newgarden was the new leader. Newgarden led the last 59 laps to win the race. He now trails Pato O’Ward by 22-points in the standings with three races left in the season.
During the post-race celebration, Newgarden was thrilled to win again in St. Louis. “I couldn’t ask for much more. Everyone did a great job. I’m thrilled. We’ve got to keep going. We know this is going to be a climb, but this goes a long way tonight. Any win is important for the year. Wish we had a couple more to this point and were in a different position, but we’ve always got to fight with where we’re at and what we’ve got in our hands.”
The rest of the top ten finishers were Will Power third, Scott McLaughlin fourth, Sebastien Bourdais fifth, Takuma Sato sixth, Ryan Hunter-Reay seventh, Simon Pagenaud eighth, Marcus Ericsson ninth, and Jack Harvey tenth.
The next race for the NTT IndyCar Series is on Sunday, September 12th, from Portland International Raceway at 3 pm on NBC.
| Position | Driver | Interval |
| 1. | Josef Newgarden | – |
| 2. | Pato O’Ward | .5397 |
| 3. | Will Power | 5.8660 |
| 4. | Scott McLaughlin | 6.6620 |
| 5. | Sebastien Bourdais | 7.7960 |
| 6. | Takuma Sato | 8.2618 |
| 7. | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 14.0259 |
| 8. | Simon Pagenaud | 15.5421 |
| 9. | Marcus Ericsson | 18.7676 |
| 10. | Jack Harvey | 20.1207 |
| 11. | Conor Daly | 22.1036 |
| 12. | Dalton Kettle | 24.5581 |
| 13. | Tony Kannan | 26.8367 |
| 14. | Romain Grosjean | -1 |
| 15. | James Hinchcliffe | -17 |
| 16. | Felix Rosenqvist | -49 |
| 17. | Alexander Rossi | -60 |
| 18. | Colton Herta | -75 |
| 19. | Scott Dixon | -160 |
| 20. | Alex Palou | -196 |
| 21. | Rinus VeeKay | -196 |
| 22. | Ed Carpenter | -206 |
| 23. | Graham Rahal | -256 |
| 24. | Ed Jones | -258 |
