Pato O’Ward again celebrated a victory in a monumental race at Iowa Speedway, this time at the expense of his NTT INDYCAR SERIES rival. In the 100th series start of O’Ward’s career, the Arrow McLaren driver overcame Josef Newgarden’s dominating performance in the Synk 275 powered by Sukup with late-race execution featuring a pair of restarts in the final 14 laps.
This story is familiar. O’Ward and Newgarden continue to battle each other for race wins, with Newgarden’s signature win in the rivalry coming in the 2024 Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. He passed O’Ward on the last lap.
This time, it was O’Ward making the winning moves. He had a quicker final pit stop to overtake the driver who led the race’s first 232 laps and seemed on his way to a record-extending seventh race win here. Then, following a red flag to repair the track’s Turn 4 wall, O’Ward kept the Team Penske driver behind him on restarts with 14 and nine laps remaining.
O’Ward’s margin of victory in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet was 0.2352 of a second, the closest Iowa finish since 2007 when Dario Franchitti edged Marco Andretti by .0861 of a second.
In oval races where these two drivers finished first and second, O’Ward last got the better of Newgarden in 2021 at Texas Motor Speedway. He had finished second to Newgarden in four other oval races since that day in Fort Worth.
Coincidentally, O’Ward scored his first victory at this short oval in 2022, and it was the 50th series start. Also that day, O’Ward had Team Penske drivers in his mirrors – it was Will Power followed by Scott McLaughlin. This time, O’Ward led a trio of Roger Penske’s men to the to the finish line: Newgarden, Power and McLaughlin, respectively.
While O’Ward won his first race of the season, he denied Team Penske its first win of the year. One of the three of them had won eight of the past nine series races at Iowa, including doubleheader sweeps each of the past two years. McLaughlin (main photo) had charged from the last starting position – 27th – after crashing in qualifying earlier in the day.
Chevrolet had its best result of the season, finishing 1-2-3-4 and winning the first time this year.
Newgarden led more than 100 laps for the 14th time in his career and the 10th time at this track. He was disappointed to let this one get away.
The dash to the finish was set up by the Turn 4 accident of O’Ward’s teammate, Nolan Siegel. After running in the top 10 most of the race, Siegel spun into the wall, contact that damaged the energy-absorbing SAFER Barrier. INDYCAR issued a red-flag stoppage to preserve the remaining few laps as workers patched the wall.
O’Ward got a noticeable jump on Newgarden on the first restart, but PREMA Racing’s Callum Ilott drifted high on that lap and brushed the Turn 1 wall. As Ilott was able to get to the pits without much trouble, the race restarted with nine laps remaining.
Newgarden got a better run on O’Ward on that try, but on the second time around the No. 2 Astemo Team Penske Chevrolet almost got away from him in Turn 1. O’Ward was able to slip away a bit, eating up laps that would have been valuable to Newgarden’s bid.
Trailing the Penske cars to the finish was Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, the series points leader who finished fifth. Palou lost seven points off his lead as O’Ward used the victory to jump to second in the standings, but the driver of the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda still holds a 106-point cushion with six races to go.
Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood took a big hit in both the race and in points when his No. 27 Sukup Honda veered hard into the Turn 1 wall on Lap 153. An issue with the right-front corner of the car appeared to cause the excursion. That was the second accident of the day as he crashed at the other end of the track after appearing to get too low in Turn 3.
Kirkwood not only lost a standings position to O’Ward, Palou pulled away by another 27 points, putting the season’s three-time winner 140 points in arrears.
On the race’s 75th lap, series rookie Jacob Abel saw his No. 51 Abel Construction Honda drift high in Turn 2, where he, too, hit the wall. Neither he nor Kirkwood were injured.
The second half of the weekend doubleheader will be staged Sunday with the Farm to Finish 275 powered by Sukup with coverage beginning at 1 p.m. ET.
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings: Palou 461, O’Ward 356, Kirkwood 322, Dixon 302, Lundgaard 272, Rosenqvist 272, Power 238, Herta 234, Armstrong 232, McLaughlin 229, Ferrucci 222, Malukas 205, VeeKay 193, Newgarden 186, Rasmussen 183, Rossi 181, Simpson 174, Daly 170, Rahal 158, Ericsson 156, Siegel 153, Foster 134, Shwartzman 123, Robb 113, DeFrancesco 110, Ilott 102, Abel 69, Takuma Sato 36, Helio Castroneves 20, Ed Carpenter 16, Jack Harvey 12, Ryan Hunter-Reay 10, Kyle Larson 6, Marco Andretti 5
Results Saturday of the Synk 275 powered by Sukup NTT INDYCAR SERIES event on the 0.894-mile Iowa Speedway, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):
1/ (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 275, Running
2/ (1) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 275, Running
3/ (7) Will Power, Chevrolet, 275, Running
4/ (27) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 275, Running
5/ (4) Alex Palou, Honda, 275, Running
6/ (19) Christian Rasmussen, Chevrolet, 275, Running
7/ (2) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 275, Running
8/ (9) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 275, Running
9/ (11) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 275, Running
10/ (6) Scott Dixon, Honda, 275, Running
11/ (14) Graham Rahal, Honda, 275, Running
12/ (10) David Malukas, Chevrolet, 275, Running
13/ (23) Colton Herta, Honda, 275, Running
14/ (12) Louis Foster, Honda, 275, Running
15/ (15) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 275, Running
16/ (25) Rinus VeeKay, Honda, 274, Running
17/ (3) Felix Rosenqvist, Honda, 274, Running
18/ (22) Kyffin Simpson, Honda, 274, Running
19/ (20) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 274, Running
20/ (16) Robert Shwartzman, Chevrolet, 274, Running
21/ (21) Christian Lundgaard, Chevrolet, 274, Running
22/ (24) Sting Ray Robb, Chevrolet, 274, Running
23/ (17) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 260, Contact
24/ (8) Nolan Siegel, Chevrolet, 246, Contact
25/ (13) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 236, Mechanical
26/ (18) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 151, Contact
27/ (26) Jacob Abel, Honda, 72, Contact
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