Pato O’Ward scores his second win of the season at Iowa

On Sunday afternoon at Iowa Speedway, the NTT IndyCar Series concluded the doubleheader with the Hy-Vee Salute to Farmers 300 in front of a packed house.

Before the race started, Scott Dixon made his 300^th consecutive start, and Graham Rahal made his 200^th consecutive start. Will Power started the race on the pole, and Saturday’s winner Josef Newgarden started second.

Will Power and Josef Newgarden were going at it for the lead early in the race. On lap 60, Simon Pagenaud was blacked flagged for not having a working radio and went to pit road to fix the problem before returning to the track.

On lap 65, Will Power and Josef Newgarden went to pit road, and Power beat him out to keep first place. By lap 84, Newgarden got around Power to take the lead and pulled away. While Newgarden was leading, he had to work hard to get by the other drivers as they fought hard to stay on the lead lap.

The race was caution free until lap 120, when Kyle Kirkwood hit the wall at turn two. Drivers went to pit road for service during the caution. Before the race resumed, Christian Lundgaard’s car had a brake issue and was out of the race, finishing in 26^th place.

Josef Newgarden was in cruise control while Pato O’Ward and Will Power chased him. He was putting many drivers a lap down or more. He looked to be headed for his fifth win at Iowa until lap 235 when his car broke the rear suspension, and he crashed at the exit of turn four for the second caution.

“It was a bit of a shock. Man, I want to cry. So sad for my team,” said Josef Newgarden. “I don’t know what happened. It was a good run. I feel terrible for us. I don’t know; something went wrong there.”

With Newgarden out, Pato O’Ward was the new leader on the restart at lap 249, with Will Power second. O’Ward led the last 66 laps to win his second race of the season by 4.2476 seconds over Will Power. Scott McLaughlin came home third, Scott Dixon fourth, and Jimmie Johnson finished fifth, his best finish of his IndyCar career.

“The No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP and the guys in the pits were awesome,” said O’Ward. “We knew that we had a great car. So, it was all about just capitalizing and being there when it counted. The guys did a great job calling when we had to pit. It was very, very enjoyable.”

“This is a special day for me, for everybody that’s been on this journey with me in the IndyCar series,” said Jimmie Johnson after a fifth-place finish. “So proud to have American Legion on the car today and in the race and get the crew the best finish with them.”

The NTT IndyCar Series heads to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course next Saturday at noon on NBC. Tickets for the race can be purchased on StubHub.

Finishing Order: