Texas IndyCar: Newgarden wins thriller over O’Ward

Polesitter Felix Rosenqvist didn’t last a lap in the front, the Arrow McLaren losing out to Scott Dixon’s Ganassi entry at the end of the first lap, and then Penske’s Josef Newgarden, and fellow McLaren drivers Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi also demoting him to fifth. Newgarden and Dixon swapped the lead twice before Newgarden moved to the head of the field and eked out a small gap.

O’Ward took second from Dixon on Lap 9, while Alex Palou passed the battling Rossi and Rosenqvist to grab fourth and then moved past teammate Dixon for third.

Behind this sextet, Will Power had passed Takuma Sato for seventh, and the new Ganassi driver fell down the field to 12^th. By Lap 28, the third Penske, that of Scott McLaughlin, was up to 13^th.

Meanwhile at the front, Newgarden’s lead was out to around a second by Lap 30, with the next nine runners lined up around 0.8sec apart. As they hit traffic, Newgarden’s advantage was slashed but by Lap 40 the gap was back out to 1.5sec.

Grosjean passed Power for seventh on Lap 45, and Power suddenly dropped backward in a hurry. As the pack started to smother him, Sato got out of the groove, went high at Turn 2, struck the outside wall and then speared across the track to strike the inside wall side-on.

In the pitstops under caution, Kyle Kirkwood’s Andretti Autosport car came into his pitbox just as the driver he replaced at AA, Rossi, was released. Kirkwood swooped in from the outside ‘fast lane’ and his left rear made contact with Rossi’s right front, whose car needed a new toelink. Race control deemed Rossi’s team at fault for an unsafe release, so he had to take a drive-through penalty when his suspension was fixed.

Newgarden, O’Ward, Palou, Dixon and Rosenqvist retained the top five positions but Grosjean was up to sixth ahead of teammate Colton Herta. Scott McLaughlin was the big winner, up to eighth ahead of Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, while Devlin DeFrancesco was up to 10^th.

Malukas of Dale Coyne Racing with HMD was into 11^th, while Power was only 12^th, which considering he pitted in 16^th, showed the #12 crew was as on point as teammate McLaughlin’s.

The Lap 60 restart saw Newgarden appear to make a break, but Palou jumped O’Ward and was swiftly onto Newgarden’s tail. The pair ran side-by-side for two laps, Palou then dropped back, then pounced again to snatch the lead, but only for two laps before Newgarden wrested the lead back.

Another man moving forward was Grosjean who tried to take O’Ward for third but then eased back, remaining ahead of Dixon, and the battling Herta and McLaughlin who had gotten around Rosenqvist. Malukas and Ilott completed the top 10, while Power dropped down the order, getting passed by rookies Agustin Canapino and Benjamin Pedersen to run 17^th.

At the sharp end, O’Ward passed Palou for second on Lap 76, and a lap later Palou also lost out to Grosjean, and a lap after that he was demoted by Dixon, too.

Such was Newgarden’s pace and Power’s struggles, the race leader lapped the reigning champion who was in 23^rd. Five laps later, Power was brought in for fresh tires, while Kirkwood pitted with smoke from his right-rear upright, and got out of his car.

Newgarden’s lead over O’Ward was out to 1.9sec before the leader pitted, leaving the Arrow McLaren with a 4.5sec lead over Grosjean, Dixon and Palou. Grosjean stopped next time by, while O’Ward and Dixon went a lap longer.

By the time O’Ward emerged, his deficit to Newgarden was out to four seconds, but he held a similar advantage over Grosjean. Dixon and Palou were fourth and fifth, well ahead of McLaughlin and Herta.

O’Ward started cutting into Newgarden’s advantage, immediately after their stops, however, and from Lap 125, the halfway point of the race, the Penske driver was only half a second ahead. On Lap 129, O’Ward clung on around the outside of Newgarden to take the lead, and when Newgarden tried to retaliate, the McLaren driver held firm on the inside line.

Over the next 30 laps, O’Ward stretched his lead out to well over five seconds, and on Lap 152 he put fifth placed Dixon – recently passed by Palou – down a lap. In third, Grosjean held steady but was 15sec down to Newgarden, but two seconds ahead of Palou, who had a similar margin over Dixon. In sixth, Herta had gotten the better of McLaughlin who was followed by Malukas, Rosenqvist and Ericsson.

On Lap 160, O’Ward and Newgarden were the only drivers on the lead lap as O’Ward whipped past Grosjean.

McLaughlin and Malukas pitted from the top 10, but McLaughlin ran long so his stop was delayed. Newgarden stopped on Lap 164, while Grosjean stopped the following lap while Palou was filling his mirrors.

O’Ward’s third stop wasn’t great – a delay on the left rear – but he was still five seconds ahead of Newgarden. Palou’s #10 Ganassi crew got their man out ahead of Grosjean to claim third, but the Andretti driver remained ahead of Dixon, whose nearest challenger was no longer Herta, but Malukas. Behind Herta, Rosenqvist – who made his third stop late – came out in eighth, ahead of the delayed McLaughlin, but the #6 Arrow McLaren went high through Turn 3 and drifted up into the wall at Turn 4.

Under the ensuing yellow, O’Ward and Newgarden pitted as soon as the pits opened, and they now had 68 laps to try and get to the finish. The other drivers took the wave-around before pitting – and Newgarden stopped too, to take on more fuel, whereas O’Ward would need to save more. It looked like a potentially winning move from Tim Cindric and the #2 team.

But it did mean that Malukas was now up to a legitimate second. Behind Newgarden, were Palou and Grosjean, while Herta got out ahead of Dixon, who gave him a little nudge off pitlane.

Newgarden made a brilliant restart to get around lapped cars and move up on O’Ward to run side-by-side, but Palou took advantage of their battle to get past both of them down the back straight. Newgarden took the lead briefly but Palou retaliated.

As they and O’Ward battled for the lead – which neither of them particularly wanted as the leader burns more fuel – Herta surged through to lead for four laps. However, Herta too had ceded the lead to Palou by the time the yellow flew for Sting Ray Robb striking the wall at Turn 2 and then bouncing back across the track to take a front-left impact on the inside wall.

Most of the field stopped again to eliminate fuel worries, but Palou stayed out ahead of Grosjean, Herta and Dixon. Of the stoppers, O’Ward ran fifth ahead of Newgarden and McLaughlin. Behind then ran Malukas, VeeKay and Carpenter.

On the Lap 220 restart, Grosjean managed to pull off a pass on Palou and lead for two laps, but the charging O’Ward got past them both to hit the front, and Newgarden was up to third. Then there was a fifth yellow, as DeFrancesco’s hobbled car, following a wall-strike slowed and meandered into Graham Rahal’s path. The RLL car launched off the left rear of the Andretti car and struck the wall.

Under yellow, Newgarden, Dixon and Grosjean stopped again and emerged in third, eighth and seventh respectively. Thus the order for the restart was O’Ward, Palou, Newgarden, Herta, Malukas, McLaughlin, Grosjean, Dixon, Ericsson and Helio Castroneves, the latter pair one lap down.

The Lap 238 restart saw O’Ward get away strongly but Palou grabbed the lead until Lap 242 when the resurgent Newgarden went around the outside of the Ganassi car to hit P1. But O’Ward wasn’t done yet and retaliated to pass Palou and attack Newgarden. The pair even banged wheels when they crossed the line, while behind them the pair were chased by Palou, Malukas, Grosjean and Dixon.

However, as Grosjean and Malukas battled side by side, the Andretti driver had to check up because of Palou slowing ahead, and as he got back on the gas, Grosjean wiggled out of control and into the wall.

Thus the field finished under yellow, with Newgarden taking his third Texas win ahead of a frustrated O’Ward, Palou, Malukas and Dixon.

McLaughlin claimed sixth ahead of Herta, while Grosjean’s demise moved Ericsson, Ilott and Castroneves into the top 10.

P	No	Name	Laps	Diff	LapTime	Gap	Pits	LPit	P2P	FL	FTime	Led	ST	FSpeed	Elapsed	Engine	Tire	Points	Team
1	2	Josef Newgarden	250	LAP 250	52.9258		6	213	0	169	23.7039	123	4	218.698	2:07:07.2653	Chevy	Po	66	Team Penske
2	5	Pato O'Ward	250	1.2838	54.0178	1.2838	5	213	0	118	23.4475	91	5	221.090	2:07:08.5491	Chevy	Po	82	Arrow McLaren
3	10	Alex Palou	250	1.8839	53.4215	0.6001	4	188	0	172	23.4712	22	7	220.866	2:07:09.1492	Honda	Po	60	Chip Ganassi Racing
4	18	David Malukas	250	2.1173	52.4904	0.2334	4	213	0	168	23.7715		9	218.076	2:07:09.3826	Honda	P	53	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD
5	9	Scott Dixon	250	2.4379	52.4924	0.3206	5	226	0	122	23.5811	3	2	219.837	2:07:09.7032	Honda	Po	67	Chip Ganassi Racing
6	3	Scott McLaughlin	250	4.1359	52.3876	1.6980	5	213	0	168	23.9065		15	216.845	2:07:11.4012	Chevy	P	48	Team Penske
7	26	Colton Herta	250	6.4228	51.9056	2.2869	4	188	0	117	23.5119	4	10	220.484	2:07:13.6881	Honda	Po	37	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian
8	8	Marcus Ericsson	249	1 LAPS	52.4368	50.7820	6	234	0	114	23.8169		16	217.661	2:07:12.5645	Honda	Po	75	Chip Ganassi Racing
9	77	Callum Ilott	249	1 LAPS	52.4054	0.9622	6	234	0	165	23.9537		17	216.418	2:07:13.5267	Chevy	P	52	Juncos Hollinger Racing
10	06	Helio Castroneves	249	1 LAPS	51.5894	0.6964	5	234	0	174	23.7873		21	217.931	2:07:14.2231	Honda	Po	27	Meyer Shank Racing
11	21	Rinus VeeKay	249	1 LAPS	51.6707	0.7653	6	234	0	163	23.9837		26	216.147	2:07:14.9884	Chevy	P	28	Ed Carpenter Racing
12	78	Agustin Canapino	249	1 LAPS	51.1704	2.9851	6	234	0	116	23.8040		19	217.779	2:07:17.9735	Chevy	P	36	Juncos Holling Racing
13	33	Ed Carpenter	249	1 LAPS	50.9453	2.0969	6	234	0	117	23.8437		18	217.416	2:07:20.0704	Chevy	P	17	Ed Carpenter Racing
14	28	Romain Grosjean	248	0.5423	24.1129	0.0195	5	226	0	117	23.5464	2	11	220.161	2:05:50.3320	Honda	P	31	Andretti Autosport
15	55	Benjamin Pedersen	248	2 LAPS	51.0019	49.4953	6	233	0	119	23.7237		13	218.516	2:07:18.6204	Chevy	Po	20	AJ Foyt Enterprises
16	12	Will Power	248	2 LAPS	48.7179	3.3167	7	233	0	103	23.6490		8	219.206	2:07:21.9371	Chevy	P	40	Team Penske
17	60	Simon Pagenaud	247	3 LAPS	51.0258	46.0760	6	232	0	239	23.9249		22	216.678	2:07:19.2952	Honda	Po	18	Meyer Shank Racing
18	30	Jack Harvey	247	3 LAPS	51.3005	1.8266	6	232	0	120	24.1831		28	214.365	2:07:21.1218	Honda	Po	20	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
19	45	Christian Lundgaard	247	3 LAPS	47.9788	4.8719	6	232	0	122	23.8965		27	216.936	2:07:25.9937	Honda	Po	33	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
20	20	Conor Daly	246	4 LAPS	49.0252	45.1421	7	231	0	239	24.1533		25	214.629	2:07:23.1570	Chevy	Po	26	Ed Carpenter Racing
21	14	Santino Ferrucci	246	4 LAPS	48.7130	2.4058	7	231	0	117	23.8660		14	217.213	2:07:25.5628	Chevy	Po	15	AJ Foyt Enterprises
22	7	Alexander Rossi	243	7 LAPS	52.0670	2 LAPS	7	228	0	111	23.7279		3	218.477	2:07:16.3822	Chevy	Po	40	Arrow McLaren
23	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	221	Contact	23.9188	0.2140	5	212	0	116	23.8490		12	217.368	1:48:21.0787	Honda	Po	12	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport
24	15	Graham Rahal	219	Contact	24.3940	23.3858	5	210	0	117	24.0861		24	215.228	1:48:22.3245	Honda	Po	34	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
25	51	Sting Ray Robb	208	Contact	25.2344	0.2986	4	187	0	174	23.8798	1	23	217.087	1:38:54.4535	Honda	Po	20	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR
26	6	Felix Rosenqvist	177	Contact	27.6694	0.9756	3	173	0	122	23.4559	4	1	221.010	1:19:28.4760	Chevy	Po	18	Arrow McLaren
27	27	Kyle Kirkwood	97	Contact	43.0231	3.2020	2	97	0	4	24.2076		20	214.148	45:55.4032	Honda	Po	20	Andretti Autosport
28	11	Takuma Sato	46	Contact	26.5468	0.1077		0	0	2	24.0575		6	215.484	18:56.7785	Honda	Po	5	Chip Ganassi Racing