Newgarden extended his Iowa legend and Palou finished sixth

One of the favorite circuits of Joseph Newgarden is the iowa Speedway and this Saturday he proved it again with his fourth win at Newton, which makes him the winningest driver at this track after the race in which he beat the Mexican. Duck O’Wardwhich returns to reach the second position. Alex Palou graduated to sixth place.

It was also the fourth win of the season for the American, who completed a superb race in strategy and driving and moved up from fourth to second overall and just 15 points behind championship leader Marcus Ericsson, who finished in eighth.

Newgarden is full of options to fight for the final victory with six races to go. Newgarden had a big smile on his face and nodded to his team: “I always have faith every weekend that I drive for Team Penske.”

“I was surprised how hard these rivals came out after every restart of the race. I was disappointed after qualifying, but I know now we have a car that can win,” he told the American broadcast, acknowledging the complexity of this first 250. career. lap in Iowa (second is Sunday).

It was a fast battle on the short oval in Iowa with a finish that left a passionate fight for first place between Will Power and Newgarden himself, but also for third place between Pato O’Ward and the Spaniard Alex Palou. In the end it was the Mexican who completed the podium but moved up to the second drawer after passing Power in the last gasp.

The Mexican warned O’Ward that the Arrow McLaren responds very well on ovals and he is right. Both he and his team taught a lesson after the pit stop with impressive speed and management to overtake the main drivers on several occasions.

O’Ward He added his third podium in this championship, sixth in the title race and continues to collect enough points to dream of something big in the IndyCar final.

There are many candidates to succeed palou, reigning champion of the competition. After the first race in Iowa there was an exciting scenario with only 35 points difference between the top five classifieds.

“I know that everyone is betting on getting back on track after the pits and I was able to interpret how to do things and not lose them. In the end it’s about having a good car. We’ll see how it goes It’s going to happen tomorrow,” O’Ward said after he reached the goal

Strategy against heat

As expected, the temperature reached records of 38 degrees Celsius, with the asphalt above 50 degrees, and that was an additional concern for the drivers to take care of their tires and take advantage of the pit stops.

This made strategy a key factor and those who took advantage of this situation best were those who came up with options in the final laps.

Palou again starred in the patience race and came back from position number twelve, just as he did in Toronto a week ago, closing in on first place after completing two thirds of the race.

He later tried to defend his place on the podium, but in the end he was unable to maintain it and lost several positions in the outcome. The Spaniard finished sixth and fell to the general in fourth place33 points below leader Ericsson.

The Catalan suffered in the first half, as he got within a lap of the race lead and was even beaten by Newgarden on lap number 100.

But an accident Felix Rosenqvist This benefited him and, going forward, he was back in the top ten positions and a salvageable distance that would eventually allow him to become the main character.

palouin his fight for third place, allowed Rinus Veekay He got too close to him, to the point that the Dutch driver overtook him with only three laps to go. In the end he lost gas and saw that too Scott Dixon cross the finish line ahead.

Far from the first positions, but maintaining the leadership of the general, ericsson finished eighth in its first race at Iowa, proving that the bad feelings on Friday and Saturday morning were no accident. Now he sees his lead in jeopardy if he can’t position himself for 300 laps on Sunday at the same track.

Special mention is due Jimmy Johnson, who is the great entertainer of the race. The California driver surprisingly led 19 laps and was involved in all sorts of incidents, from losing control of his car which caused the first yellow flag on lap number 20 and allowing many rivals to recover, up to his driving technique at the limit made us see overtaking three by three.

The consequences of this were too many in the form of an unusual tire failure that finally took him from the top five to a certain eleventh position.

There will be little time to disconnect, because in less than 24 hours the engines of the single-seaters will be roaring back to Iowa Speedway with a new appointment on the short oval, with 50 more laps of the race and, presumably, less heat than the one recorded this Saturday.