Josef Newgarden wins St. Louis-area IndyCar race for 5th time and 4th in 5 years

MADISON, Ill. (AP) — Josef Newgarden won for the fifth time at World Wide Technology Raceway on Saturday night, taking the lead during a late pit stop and holding off teammate Scott McLaughlin on two restarts.

Newgarden survived a partial spin-out on Lap 196 in the 260-lap race, keeping his No. 2 Chevrolet out of the wall as he turned sideways coming out of Turn 2.

“I pushed a little hard in that moment, made a mistake and then I was so thankful that we didn’t wreck because I knew we could gather this up and still win this race,” Newgarden said.

Newgarden’s incident brought comparisons to Danny Sullivan’s “spin and win” in the 1985 Indianapolis 500.

“Certainly not as beautiful as Danny’s,” Newgarden said. “I mean, he pirouetted.”

Newgarden has been dominant on the track just outside St. Louis, winning for the fourth time in the past five years. His winning streak ended last year, when he crashed with 49 laps to go.

It was a sweep for Team Penske’s No. 2 cars at the track, after Austin Cindric won the NASCAR Cup race this year. The crowd was much smaller for the IndyCar race, with empty swaths of seats in the main grandstand.

Cindric’s father, Tim, is the Penske president and was in the team box for Newgarden’s victory.

“You can’t ignore that final pit stop was a big deal for us,” Newgarden said. “It’s hard to say if it works out if we don’t get that done, but it certainly was a key ingredient to us winning the race.”

Newgarden has 31 career victories, also winning Indianapolis 500 this year.

Defending series champion Alex Palou extended his points lead after his closest pursuer, Will Power, was knocked out in a late crash after leading more laps than anyone else.

Power was in fourth place coming to a restart with nine laps to go when Alexander Rossi rear-ended him. Power faulted teammate Newgarden for getting in and out of the gas while rounding Turn 4 to prepare for the restart.

“I don’t know why — I do not know why — he would just keep backing up and going, not going,” said Power, who ended up 18th and fell to fourth in the points race. “I do not understand it.”

Newgarden admitted he “was trying to go as late as I could” but insisted it was within the rules and consistent with other restarts across his career.

“The last thing I’m trying to do is cause a wreck,” Newgarden said, suggesting race control may have hit the green light a moment before he actually accelerated. “Believe me, the last thing I want is for Will to get hit.”

Palou entered with a 49-point lead over Power and now has a 59-point edge over Colton Herta with four races left. Herta crossed the finish line fourth, but was penalized for blocking and dropped to fifth.

After a red flag to clean up the track, Newgarden pulled away on the restart and was not challenged the rest of the way.

“Personally, I think he restarted very late. That was probably more the problem,” said McLaughlin, noting it potentially cost the team a podium sweep. “It’s not up to me to judge that. From my perspective, it just didn’t need to happen.”

Newgarden hadn’t led until a crash with 18 laps to go by David Malukas, who had finished on the podium the past two years at the track formerly known as Gateway Motorsports Park.

It was effectively a duel between the pit crews for Newgarden and McLaughlin, the pole-sitter, who were the only drivers on the lead lap at the time.

Last year’s race was decided largely on fuel strategy by Scott Dixon, who ended up nearly a full lap ahead of everyone else.

OH NO, O’WARD

Pato O’Ward, who entered the race in fifth place in the points standings, went to the garage after 42 laps with apparent engine trouble. O’Ward had been the runner-up in four of last five races at the track, with five straight top-five finishes.

“It’s been a year of ups and downs, and I think at this point we just want to be winning races. There’s four to go, so there’s plenty of points on the table,” said O’Ward, who finished in 26th and only ahead of Katherine Legge, who crashed on Lap 8.

ERICSSON’S EXIT

Marcus Ericsson, who led 13 laps while executing a similar fuel strategy to Dixon, suddenly slowed from the lead and then remained in the pits for a few extra seconds in what was intended to be his next-to-last pit stop on Lap 149. But one lap later, Ericsson returned to pit road and his race was over.

“We had the car and the speed to win that thing,” said Ericsson, who indicated it was an issue with the hybrid system. “It just doesn’t want to go our way.”

Dixon wasn’t able to win on fuel strategy this time, though. He got caught out of sequence with the leaders when Newgarden’s spin caused the late caution just after Dixon had pitted and was two laps down.

TEAMATES IN TROUBLE

Both of the Juncos Hollinger Racing cars were involved in a crash on Lap 17. Conor Daly, in his first race since replacing Augustin Canapino in the No. 78 car, got spun around on the backstretch but suffered less damage than teammate Romain Grosjean and Kyle Kirkwood.

The final road course race of the season is Sunday, Aug. 25, in Portland, Oregon. Palou won last year to wrap up his second series championship in the past three years.

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