If you want to see a dominant weekend, all you have to do is look at Josef Newgarden and the Iowa Speedway. The Team Penske driver has always had a love affair in recent years and when the calendar was announced, Newgarden definitely would have both the Iowa double-header and Nashville circled. Coming into the double-header, Newgarden would have been dubbed the ‘favourite’.
Race 2 at Iowa for the Hy-Vee Salute To Farmers 300 and it was the exact same front row as we saw from the day before, Will Power on the pole with team-mate Josef Newgarden in 2nd place. Once the green flag had been shown to the drivers to signal the start of the race, it was Arrow McLaren SP’s young Mexican charger Pato O’Ward who was already experimenting on the high line even higher than what was shown in race one.
Championship leader Marcus Ericsson had a poor qualifying position and was the biggest mover in the first five laps. Starting down in P15, Ericsson made five positions and got into the top 10. The sneaky Swede would need to have had a strong race, given his closest rivals for the championship were all starting towards the top of the order.
With the teams having had a night sleep and a night of looking at all the data from race 1, the teams were now able to make some changes to their cars. A prime example is Callum Ilott, in the Juncos Hollinger Racing 77 car, who learnt that he couldn’t use the higher second lane and was stuck to using the low lane.
It was clear early on that some cars were struggling to make it halfway through the first stint, Jack Harvey started 6th place and 27 laps into the first stint he had used his rear tyres and started falling back into the pack like a stone. It was Harvey’s former team, Meyer Shank Racing, that were next to experience issues and previous Iowa winner Simon Pagenaud who was given a black flag for safety issues due to having no communications with his team.
To make a 4-stop strategy work, drivers needed to make it to lap 60; anything earlier would commit the driver to a potential 5-stop strategy but needed a lot of caution to make it to a standard 4-stop race. Conor Daly looked to have been on that 5-stop strategy when he brought his 20 Bitnile Ed Carpenter Racing car onto pit-road on lap 41.
Several laps later, the window for a 4-stop strategy was open and in a six lap period all of the lead pack all came into pit-lane. There were still drivers who were on the 4-stop strategy who stopped even later than the leaders.
If there was one thing that was learnt from race 1 was that Power struggled to get around lapped cars and this was the case again and just like race 1, Newgarden was there to pounce on his team-mate Power and take the lead of the race.
Unlike the previous days race, not only did the first 100 laps fly-by but there was no caution period until lap 120 when Newgarden, tried to lap Kyle Kirkwood and Rinus Veekay, when they went 3-wide into turn 1 and it forced Kirkwood on the highline and the car took off under him and sailed off into the barrier. It was very timely for the leaders as it happened when they were going to take their second pit-stop. When the pits opened the top 4 all took the decision to pit, as the rest of the field took the next couple of laps to pit.
When the action restarted then the first of the top 4 to attack was Ericsson lining up O’Ward for 3rd place and the final spot on the podium. After that attempt from Ericsson, it would now be O’Ward’s turn to start an attack and this time it was on Power for 2nd place.
Qualifying for the Chip Ganassi Racing squad was a struggle with their highest placed driver being Alex Palou in 12th place. Their Kiwi driver Scott Dixon, starting down in 18th place, made a move on his fellow countryman Scott McLaughlin that would see him move into the top 5.
With 104 laps remaining and with two stops remaining, it was O’Ward who blinked first with an undercut attempt on the two Penske’s. It worked, O’Ward was able to jump Power to get into 2nd place.
Drama was to come some 40 laps later with Newgarden, who had controlled the race since picking up the lead, crashed on the exit of turn 4 and replays made it look as if a right rear component broke on the car and spun him around. He was originally checked out and released from the infield care centre but then later in the day lost consciousness and fell and was escorted to hospital where he stayed overnight.
During the caution period, the leaders made what would be their final stops of the race and once again there was a change for position in the pit-lane. This time involving the 9 PNC Bank of Scott Dixon who overtook Kiwi McLaughlin for 4th place.
Jimmie Johnson, who has looked so different at the track, was competing with team-mate Ericsson for the majority of the final stint and eventually got passed the Swede for a top 5 position, a place where Jimmie has finished with his best being 6th place at Texas early in the season.
Nothing else really happened up-front and Pato O’Ward went on to win the race with Will Power in second and Scott McLaughlin rounding out the podium. Scott Dixon finished 4th and Jimmie Johnson got a career best finish of 5th. The championship lead going into the Iowa double-header was 35 points and leaving Iowa, Ericsson’s lead has shrunk to 8 points with five races remaining.
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