Josef Newgarden led 282 of the 300 laps spun and drove off to victory in the most dominating performance of the IndyCar season. The second year racer with Ed Carpenter Racing started on the outside of the front row for the Iowa Corn 300. Josef Newgarden passed pole sitter Simon Pagenaud from the outside on the first lap.
The event was over before it even started. In fact, he put the third place driver Helio Castroneves, a revolution behind by lap 108. The young talented driver went on to win by a impressive 4.283 seconds. As a result, the 2015 Rookie of the Year was thrilled in his post race interview.
“It was the best car I’ve ever had,” Josef Newgarden said. “It was just incredible. I could run it anywhere I wanted. My right hand was killing me, but having an amazing car helped a lot. In some stints it was like a video game. You put on new tires, you catch people at the right point and then you could just slice and dice. It was tough, but I was going to bring it home. I’m just so elated that we were able to get that oval win. We’ve been so close finishing second here twice the last couple of years and second at other ovals but this team, they got it done.”
Team Penske’s Will Power finished second after consecutive wins — but he’s still third in the standings behind Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud. The rejuvenated Power rallied in the final six laps to finish second. The 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series defending champion is third in points, 75 marks behind Pagenaud. Power was proud of his teams performance on Sunday and also credit Newgarden with his performance.
“It was good,” the Australian said. “It took us all day to get to the front, basically. We kind of went really long on the first stint. We lost quite a lot of positions there, then slowly made our way back. We needed long stints to get back to the front because our car was really good over a long distance. I’m not sure we would have had anything for Josef Newgarden. He was on his own, on another planet. Really happy with second, though. Really, really happy.”
Simon Pagenaud, the Verizon IndyCar points leader managed to lead 11 laps in the Iowa Corn 300. Even though the quick #22 Menards Chevrolet driven by Pagenaud seen the front of the pack early on, it was clear that he was no match for Josef Newgarden. He did manage to keep his car in the top five and on lead lap reeling in a fourth place finish. As a result, Pagenaud retained the points lead but now has Newgarden to contend with in second place.
Andretti Autosport had Iowa mastered in the past contests. They had seven wins in the past nine races here. The only thing the team brought to the table to stop Josef Newgarden on Sunday was some early drama.
Winner of three of the last four events in Iowa, Ryan Hunter Reay, found himself a lap down after just 30 laps. Hunter-Reay then blew his engine about a third of the way through the race, with Newgarden just one car away from putting the entire field a lap down. That caution cancelled what was a 13 second lead that the Wisconsin Native had built over the field.
The Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway took one hour and 52 minutes to complete. The average speed of the competing drivers was blistering 143.330 miles per hour. Josef Newgarden also breezed to the finish line nearly four and a half seconds ahead of Will Power. There were only three cautions in the Iowa Corn 300 that soaked up 22 laps of competitive racing.
There were 11 total lead changes among only three different drivers. Newgarden reclaimed his lead on eight separate occasions throughout the event. Furthermore, this was the tenth race in the Verizon IndyCar Series. The drivers will be heading back to Texas Motor Speedway for the next oval race competition on the schedule. They will pick up where they left off in the last rained shorten race earlier this year.
Final Running Order for the Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway:
1. Josef Newgarden
2. Will Power
3. Scott Dixon
4. Simon Pagenaud
5. Mikhail Aleshin
6. Alexander Rossi
7. Tony Kanaan
8. Sebastien Bourdais
9. James Hinchcliffe
10. Charlie Kimball
11. Takuma Sato
12. Carlos Munoz
13. Helio Castroneves
14. Marco Andretti
15. Jack Hawksworth
16. Graham Rahal
17. Gabby Chaves
18. Ed Carpenter
19. Max Chilton
20. Juan Pablo Montoya (DNF)
21. Conor Daly (DNF)
22. Ryan Hunter-Reay (DNF)
