Josef Newgarden took his fifth straight oval win in this morning’s race at Iowa Speedway as Scott McLaughlin led home Scott Dixon for fifth and sixth, respectively.
McLaughlin had started on the front row and briefly led on Lap 30 with a pass on pole-sitter Will Power, only for lapped traffic to become an issue on Lap 32. This allowed Newgarden to return to the front and control the majority of proceedings, as he also did in yesterday’s opener.
After the opening round of stops, Newgarden’s lead had extended to three seconds over McLaughlin, with Power a further five seconds down the road.
That was how the lead two remained until a Safety Car was called for when Agustin Canapiro hit the Turn 2 wall. A lap 107 restart would follow, with Newgarden retaining the lead over McLaughlin and Dixon moving into third
McLaughlin would trigger the next round of stops on Lap 149, and the lead pack followed shortly after. Another caution would follow when Sting Ray Robb lost a wheel at Turn 3, and the field left scrambling to avoid contact as it rolled across the track.
McLaughlin and Pato O’Ward would pit under the yellow while Newgarden, Power and Dixon remained out. Fresh rubber worked a treat for McLaughlin, who charged back to sit fourth when the final round of stops came into play.
Another caution was called with 11 laps to run when Ryan Hunter-Reay hit the Turn 4 wall, resulting in the lapped traffic being removed from within the lead battle.
Newgarden would remain in the lead off the final restart, while Felix Rosenqvist, who had moved to second, ran wide at Turn 1 and lost spots to Power, McLaughlin. He would recover to pass the Kiwi for fourth on the final lap, relegating McLaughlin to fifth and Dixon to sixth.
“Honestly, the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda was very good,” said Dixon following the race. “We may have gone a bit too long on our stints and got undercut. It was a frustrating day, as we had moved up to third, were then challenging for second and then ended up sixth. This is definitely a fun track. It’s obviously more fun when things go right, but that’s not always possible.”
Newgarden would take a 0.7-second win over Power, while Palou returned to the podium in third.
IndyCar next returns with the Music City Grand Prix on August 6.
Header Image: Sourced Scott McLaughlin (Facebook)
