Josef Newgarden dominates to fourth win of the season in Iowa

On Saturday afternoon, the NTT IndyCar Series held the first of two races at Iowa Speedway in the Hy-VeeDeals.com 250. Drivers were racing in near 100-degree temperature.

Qualifying for both races took place in the morning, with Will Power earning his 65^th and 66^th career poles. He is now one pole away from tying Mario Andretti (67). Power’s teammate Josef Newgarden qualified second in both races.

Seventeen laps into the race, Jimmie Johnson got loose at the exit of turn four and went around without hitting the wall. He went to pit road for new tires. Will Power led 22 laps, and on the restart, Josef Newgarden timed the restarted and passed Power on the inside of turn one to take the lead on lap 23.

Newgarden led 37 laps before making his first pit stop, and Will Power was the new leader. Power led a lap before pitting and Jimmie Johnson, who pitted on lap 19, was the new leader. Once Johnson pitted on lap 80, Newgarden was the leader.

On lap 111, Felix Rosenqvist got loose late into turn one and crashed hard at turn two for the second caution. Before the race resumed, Colton Herta was on pit road with a clutch issue. When his crew could fix the issue, Herta was several laps down.

On lap 127, the third caution came out for debris on the front stretch. It was a quick caution, and the race resumed on lap 132. Six laps later, Will Power passed Marcus Ericsson for second place. On lap 164, Ed Carpenter got loose at turn two and hit the wall for the fourth caution. Everyone went in for their final stops of the afternoon.

On the restart, Scott McLaughlin had a loose right rear tire and went to pit road. Meanwhile, Josef Newgarden, Will Power, and Alex Palou were fighting for the lead. It took a couple of laps for Newgarden to pull away.

Meanwhile, Alex Palou’s tires wore out, and he lost track position, and Pato O’Ward moved up two spots to second place after passing Will Power. Newgarden led the last 170 laps to win his fourth race of the season by 6.1784 seconds over Pato O’Ward. This was also Newgarden’s fourth win at Iowa Speedway, and he passed Power for second in the points standings, trailing Marcus Ericsson by 15 points.

The rest of the top ten finishers were Will Power third, Rinus VeeKay fourth, Scott Dixon fifth, Alex Palou sixth, Romain Grosjean seventh, Marcus Ericsson eighth, Graham Rahal ninth, and Christian Lundgaard tenth. There were four lead changes and four cautions for 33 laps.

“I’m glad I wore this cool shirt,” said Newgarden. “It was actually pretty nice and easy in there, to be honest with you. The car was good. I was surprised at how hard these guys were pushing on the restarts. This is a long-game day. I was disappointed after qualifying. I just hate losing, and I felt like we had enough to get the job done, and we didn’t. It motivated me. I knew we had a car here today to win this race in front of this great crowd. It’s one of my favorite tracks.”

“I was pushing Josef there at the end, but we didn’t quite have it,” said second-place finisher Pato O’Ward. “We kept making the car better and better each stint. There at the end, I think we took a little bit out of them getting by Will and getting by Alex (Palou) and getting back the lappers trying to catch the No. 2.”

The doubleheader wraps up today at 3 pm on NBC. The entire starting lineup can be viewed here. Tickets for the race can be purchased at StubHub.

Finishing Order: