Josef Newgarden again led the most laps at Iowa for the fourth time in the last five years. Only this time, he was able to seal the deal and take the checkered flag after leading 245 of the race’s 300 laps after the race was delayed due to thunderstorms in the area for four-and-a-half hours, pushing the start of the race to 11:45 p.m. ET.
The race was again delayed briefly on lap 55 for another shower, but the race was resumed shortly after, in which Newgarden was able to dominate and win at Iowa for the second time since 2016 when he led 282 laps in an Ed Carpenter Racing machine.
“Let me thank the fans that stayed. I’m sorry it took so long but I’m glad we got it in tonight,” said Newgarden. “My guys were awesome on the Hitachi car. Team Penske. Team Chevy. I can’t thank them enough. We had three fast cars. I wanted to be the fastest. We succeeded tonight.
“The car was great. You had to be good in traffic. And we were pumped for the guys. They worked really hard. It was nice to have it under the lights. I think if the weather didn’t come, we weren’t going to be under the lights.”
Defending series champion Scott Dixon finished in second while defending event champion James Hinchcliffe finished third. Newgarden’s Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud finished fourth after starting on the pole. Spencer Pigot finished fifth, while Alexander Rossi, Zach Veach, Graham Rahal, Sebastien Bourdais, and Tony Kanaan rounded out the top-10.
Will Power, driving the third Team Penske car, started second and led 49 laps before experiencing difficulties that left him one lap down in 15th.
“I went a bit wide getting onto pit road and then you get into the marbles,” said Power. “Once you get your tires dirty it is impossible to drive and I really had no chance. It was an unfortunate end to a pretty strong day for the No. 12 Verizon Chevy team. We jumped out to the lead early before Josef got around us. He was pretty strong tonight but we definitely had a podium night tonight before the pit road penalty.”
The race was slowed five times for 45 laps, including a yellow on lap one for a yellow start. The second yellow came out on lap 18 when the No. 31 of Sage Karam made contact in Turn 4. Rain slowed the race on lap 51 before the red flag flew on lap 55. The fourth caution flew on lap 187 for 12 laps when Karam and the No. 30 of Takuma Sato made contact in Turn 4. The fifth and final caution flew on lap 264 for 10 laps when the No. 20 of Ed Carpenter brought out the caution in Turn 2.
There were seven lead changes among five drivers, while the race ran one hour and 56 minutes.
The series next visits Mid-Ohio on July 28 for the Honda Indy 200, which will air on NBC and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network at 3:30 p.m. ET. Rossi dominated last year’s event, but considering the race has seen six different winners in six races, it’s likely that there could be a different winner in 2019.
