Road America IndyCar: Perfect Newgarden wins, earns $1m

From the start polesitter Alexander Rossi moved from right to left twice to break the tow and his efforts weren’t in vain as he retained the lead ahead of Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Josef Newgarden, who like him was starting on alternates.

Behind them, Alex Palou held third, while Ganassi-Honda teammate Marcus Ericsson held off the lead primary-tired car, the Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet of Pato O’Ward who tried to sneak up the inside at Turn 1 but couldn’t hold it and understeered a little so the pair made slight contact. O’Ward’s loss of momentum there and early braking for tight downhill left-handed Turn 5 meant he was easy meat for Romain Grosjean whose Andretti car went around the outside of him to claim fifth. Behind O’Ward were fellow primary runners Scott McLaughlin in the second Penske and Simon Pagenaud of Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.

Jimmie Johnson spun off at Turn 3, edged off by Tatiana Calderon’s AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet, and the field went under caution.

The restart on Lap 4 looked clean, but Ericsson dived down the inside of Palou for third place at Turn 5, and as the Huski Chocolate car ran slightly deep, the defending race winner and defending champion appeared to tuck in a tad too abruptly and the innocuous looking contact sent Palou into the gravel with something broken on his front-left suspension.

Further back, Rinus VeeKay, who had just moved his Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet past Pagenaud for what would have been eighth, got ushered off track by Christian Lundgaard’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda and fell to the back of the field.

The Lap 7 restart saw Rossi having to repel Newgarden into Turn 1, while Herta – who had suffered a grid penalty for an unapproved engine change – slotted past McLaughlin to grab sixth.

Devlin DeFrancesco in the fourth Andretti Autosport car had moved up from 21^st on the grid, pouncing on primary tired cars ahead, when he came up behind Will Power. On the run down to Turn 5, the rookie misjudged when he pulled out on the #12 Penske, clipping Power’s rear and sending him spinning into the wall on the outside of the track, where he broke off his front wing. After receiving a bump start from the AMR Safety Team, Power was able to return to the pits and collect a new front wing and stay on the lead lap. Under this third yellow, Felix Rosenqvist made his first pitstop in the second AMSP car as did Graham Rahal in the RLL-Honda.

The next restart saw Rossi, Newgarden, Ericsson and Grosjean protecting their alternate Firestones and not pulling away from O’Ward and Herta on their primaries so that even by Lap 12 the top six were blanketed by only four seconds. Behind McLaughlin in seventh, Pagenaud and McLaughlin were battling hard over eighth place.

Rossi and Newgarden pitted at the end of Lap 15, to switch to primaries, and the combination of the reliably swift #2 Penske crew and Rossi having to pause as McLaughlin pulled into the pitbox ahead of him delayed the Andretti driversufficiently so that he emerged behind his foe.

Newgarden slammed in a strong out-lap to stretch his advantage by a further second, while Ericsson and Grosjean who pitted a lap later emerged between these two protagonists. However, Rossi went around the outside of teammate Grosjean at Turn 1, and closed up on Ericsson who ran wide at Turn 7 and lost momentum, allowing Rossi through.

Another man on the move was Herta who zapped past Grosjean around the outside at Turn 5 and closed up on the tail of Ericsson as the Ganassi driver got held up by Calderon.

Once everyone had stopped at least once, the off-strategy early stoppers Rosenqvist and Rahal were up front, 1.5sec apart, and five seconds ahead of VeeKay, although on Lap 20 the ECR driver was passed by Newgarden.

Newgarden was driving superbly at this stage, and had pulled a seven second lead on Rossi by the time he sliced past Rahal to grab second on Lap 23. Rosenqvist made his second stop at the end of Lap 25, and Newgarden moved into the lead, now six seconds ahead of Rossi, with Ericsson a further 1.3sec back, being pushed hard by Herta in fourth. Grosjean was 2sec back, but with a similar advantage over O’Ward.

Cindric called Newgarden in at the end of Lap 28, as did Herta, O’Ward, McLaughlin and Dixon. Penske’s #3 crew jumped St. Pete winner McLaughlin ahead of O’Ward.

Rossi and Ericsson stopped next time by, and Rossi emerged just ahead of Rosenqvist who, due to his strategy, couldn’t afford to hit the push-to-pass boost and burn up fuel to make more of the issue. Lundgaard was the last to pit, at the end of Lap 31, leaving Newgarden up front with a 4.5sec lead over Rossi. Ericsson passed Swedish compatriot Rosenqvist for third on Lap 33, and the AMSP driver came under immediate threat from Herta, who dived up the inside at Turn 1 on Lap 34 to grab fourth. The following lap, the other fuel-saving driver, Rahal, ceded sixth to Grosjean.

Rosenqvist and Rahal had to pit from fifth and seventh respectively on Lap 41, Rosenqvist having successfully held off Grosjean. To cover them off in case of a yellow, Newgarden and Rossi stopped next time by, almost five seconds apart.

The remainder of the front runners went a further lap longer, and Ericsson had a slight snafu, as the gun for changing the wheelnut got snagged under the car’s right-front wheel, and that meant the #8 Ganassi driver left the pits barely ahead of Herta, who had had to wipe his eyes with a towel during his final stop. Over the next couple of laps, Herta got close, but not to the extent where Ericsson had to compromise his racing line to the turns, and with 10 laps to go he had eased his advantage out to one second.

At the same time, Rossi was starting to make inroads into Newgarden’s lead, trimming it to 3.2sec. Further back, his teammate Grosjean outbraked Rosenqvist for fifth on Lap 47.

AMSP’s day got considerably worse further around that lap as O’Ward’s engine died at The Kink, bringing out the yellow. Suddenly Rossi, who had pared his disadvantage down to 2.8sec, had virtually no disadvantage. Herta would have another stab at Ericsson, while Rosenqvist had 91sec of push to pass, and sat in sixth behind Grosjean.

The restart with five laps to go saw Newgarden get a very comfortable jump on Rossi, but his efforts were undone by former teammate Helio Castroneves spinning his Meyer Shank Racing-Honda and stalling. Out came the caution again for two laps. It would be a three-lap shootout.

Again, Newgarden got the jump on Rossi and in fact it was Ericsson who dived inside Rossi to grab second, while behind Rossi, his teammate Herta had to defend hard from Grosjean on the run down to Turn 5. On the last lap, up the main straight, Herta with no push to pass left did have to let Grosjean through to fourth.

Rosenqvist seemed not to use his push-to-pass until the bottom straight, and so failed to pass Herta for fifth, and only just held off McLaughlin and Rahal at the checkered flag. Behind them, Dixon and Lundgaard completed the Top 10.

Newgarden was flawless, winning by 3.3sec – redemption for last year’s last-lap disappointment – and won a bonus million dollars from People Ready for winning on all three IndyCar disciplines – oval, street and road course. He’ll get to keep half of that and the other will go to charities of his choice, Wags and Walks of Nashville, and SeriousFun Children’s Network.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph	Pits	Retirement
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	55	1:53'02.8097		134.082	3
2	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	55	1:53'06.1807	3.3710	132.645	3
3	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	55	1:53'08.4445	5.6348	132.088	3
4	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	55	1:53'08.6587	5.8490	133.329	3
5	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	55	1:53'11.5754	8.7657	129.679	3
6	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	55	1:53'12.0932	9.2835	130.033	3
7	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	55	1:53'12.1161	9.3064	130.592	3
8	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	55	1:53'12.1825	9.3728	131.101	3
9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	55	1:53'12.5199	9.7102	131.732	3
10	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	55	1:53'12.8527	10.0430	132.221	3
11	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	55	1:53'13.4122	10.6025	132.311	3
12	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	55	1:53'14.5537	11.7440	132.049	3
13	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	55	1:53'16.2759	13.4662	131.516	3
14	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	55	1:53'17.5705	14.7608	130.955	3
15	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	55	1:53'17.8946	15.0849	131.429	3
16	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	55	1:53'18.9498	16.1401	130.867	3
17	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	55	1:53'19.4602	16.6505	130.323	5
18	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	55	1:53'19.6125	16.8028	131.494	5
19	Will Power	Team Penske	55	1:53'20.0188	17.2091	131.825	5
20	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	55	1:53'21.4938	18.6841	130.076	4
21	Simona de Silvestro	Paretta Autosport	55	1:53'23.0645	20.2548	129.646	4
22	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	55	1:53'24.2465	21.4368	129.894	3
23	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	55	1:53'26.1195	23.3098	126.732	4
24	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	54	1:53'23.1691	1 Lap	130.155	4
25	Tatiana Calderon	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	54	1:53'25.1810	1 Lap	128.618	6
26	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	46	1:32'18.2702	9 Laps	132.729	3	Mechanical
27	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	36	1:33'18.9891	19 Laps	124.261	3	Accident
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