For the second time in 24 hours, Josef Newgarden dominated proceedings at the Iowa Speedway to take his 4th win on ovals in Indycar in 2023, but was unable to make a large inroad into Alex Palou’s championship lead as the Spaniard rescued a podium to finish 3rd. 

A late restart might have caused a little bit of worry for Newgarden as his sizeable lead was extinguished with just a handful of laps to go, allowing Felix Rosenqvist and Will Power to close right up to his rear wing.

However, Newgarden judged the restart perfectly, as he drove his way to a second consecutive victory at the Iowa speedway in 2023, and the 6th of his career at the venue.

Will Power completed another Team Penske 1-2 as he finished second, ahead of Alex Palou who made his way up to third after the late restart in a drive of maturity and precision.

Felix Rosenqvist slipped back to 4th at the final restart, while Scott Mclaughlin’s tyres had fallen off a cliff at the end of the race, meaning he struggled his way to 5th by virtue of being the final car on the lead lap.

Scott Dixon finished 6th for the second time this weekend, ahead of Colton Herta who made up for Saturday’s disappointing run out to finish 7th. David Malukas continued his good form on ovals to finish 8th, as Marcus Ericsson lost out on the final restart to finish 9th, as Pato O’Ward rounded out the top 10.

Newgarden reignites championship charge but Palou stands firm

After race 1 in Iowa, Alex Palou’s commanding championship lead of 98 points looked be under considerable threat from Josef Newgarden, whose domination of the speedway made it feel inevitable that he would be the one to walk away with 53 extra points in his championship challenge.

As Newgarden cut his way up the field, passing both his Penske teammates in the space of half a lap to take 1st place, the Team Penske driver did not look back, opening up an enormous lead over his competitors.

As Palou was running in 12th at the time, Palou’s championship lead looked like it was going to be halved in the space of just 1 weekend, going from an enormous 117 points to just 63.

However, whilst Newgarden was out at the front making strong moves through traffic, Palou was methodically working his way up towards the front of the field, making good use of the undercut strategy on a circuit where tyre life was critical.

Palou was up to 9th by lap 175, and up to 5th by lap 198 because he made his final stop much earlier than the rest of the field.

When the caution flag was flown with 11 laps to go thanks to a brush of the turn 4 wall from Ryan Hunter-Reay, Palou was presented with an opportunity to snatch a podium place, which he did so comfortably with both hands.

He capitalised on the fading tyres of Felix Rosenqvist and Scott Mclaughlin to push his way up to third, a position which means his championship lead remains at a strong 80 points, knowing that it is now just a two-horse race between him and Newgarden.

Palou is still yet to finish below 8th in 2023, and although he has amassed the same number of wins as Newgarden (4), his consistency is what has allowed him to keep the championship lead.

The gap between the two rests at 80 points with 5 races to go, including one at World Wide Technology Raceway, a venue where Newgarden has won at every year since 2020. Palou can expect his advantage to be cut in St. Louis, but will look to his impressive road and street course form as his means of winning in 2023.

Palou may hold the advantage, but for now, the momentum is with Newgarden…

Race control left with their hands full as Iowa’s second race produces no end of surprises.

After Josef Newgarden took the lead on lap 30 from his 2 Team Penske teammates in one of the finest double overtakes the NTT IndyCar Series has seen for some time, the race looked as if Iowa’s second race would follow a similar path to its first.

Whilst the result may look similar, Race Control were certainly left with their hands full after a plethora of incidents and collisions changed the course of the race massively.

Augustin Canapino hit the turn 4 wall on lap 84, causing the first yellow of the day, but it took until lap 106 for the track to be cleared. The Iowa speedway is, admittedly, an extremely short oval at just 0.9 of a mile, but it felt like a remarkably long period of time to clear up an incident in which the driver was able to make it back to pit lane.

The restart caused no problem for Newgarden, who was able to continually slash through the traffic with ease. The more contentious issue was with regard to why when Takuma Sato hit the turn 4 wall no yellow was thrown, for in the name of consistency there was very little to differentiate between the two incidents.

Equally, throwing a caution for Ryan Hunter-Reay’s scrape of the wall seemed to be overkill, especially with just 10 laps to go. Normal restart procedures were not followed – the pits were not opened at any point, and all cars not on the lead lap were to pass through pit lane to allow the front runners to group up.

Such actions were questioned, most pertinently by Indy500 runner up Marcus Ericsson, who had the 107th running of the Indy500 title taken from him with half a lap to go earlier in May, after a similar incident was then was followed by a different restart procedure.

Ericsson questioned why the red flag was not waved, for in the name of consistency, he would have been contempt with May’s result if the procedure was the same.

Pedersen and Robb disqualified as rookies struggle in Iowa

After the highs on ovals for A.J. Foyt Enterprises in 2023, as Santino Ferrucci finished third in the Indy500 and Benjamin Pedersen won the rookie of the year award, Iowa was a cruel example of the ruthlessness of the NTT IndyCar Series.

Ferrucci and Pedersen qualified on the final 2 rows for both races 1 & 2, and consistently struggled for race pace, finishing a multitude of laps down as both cars were unable to fit their car into an optimum window.

Nowhere was this more evident than on Sunday for Pedersen, who was called in by race control on lap 193 to retire from the race as he was unable to keep pace with the field, a crushing blow for the rookie. His classification was officially written as ‘Disqualified: performance.’

However, Pedersen did not fare as badly as Sting Ray Robb, who has been under pressure for some time in 2023. Robb pitted for new tyres on lap 152, but was sent out by hisDale Coyne Racing team without the left rear wheel being fitted properly.

Instead of stopping him on pit-lane, the team made the conscious choice to allow him to drive round on the inner apron back to the pits, in the hope that the tyre would remain on, and Robb would be able to continue after another pitstop.

This was an enormous error of judgement from the #51 team. Robb’s left rear wheel came rolling off at turn 4, rolling up the track and very nearly into the path of Josef Newgarden and Conor Daly.

One of the primary roles of the pit crews is to maintain safety standards in order to protect drivers and spectators, something which Robb’s crew had clearly not adhered to. A yellow was of course thrown, and Robb was forced to watch the last 100 laps from his pit stand, also classified as disqualified.

Where next for the series?

After the dramatic Iowa weekend, which saw the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series championship take a large swing, the series heads to the streets of Nashville, known for its tight corners and incident heavy races.

Newgarden will know he needs a strong performance in his home town and Palou will look to stay out of trouble if this championship is to be the Spaniards.

With just 5 races left for the series in 2023, every point is crucial as Newgarden and Palou will do battle once again in 2023.

Race Result:

Position:	Driver:	Team:	Classification:	Points:
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1:40:25.7356	53
2	Will Power	Team Penske	+0.7050	42
3	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	+2.6864	35
4	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	+4.1167	33
5	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	+7.8891	31
6	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	+1 Lap	29
7	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport with Curb-Agajanian	+1 Lap	26
8	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports	+1 Lap	24
9	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	+1 Lap	23
10	Pato O’Ward	Arrow McLaren	+1 Lap	20
11	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	+1 Lap	19
12	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	+1 Lap	18
13	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	+1 Lap	17
14	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	+2 Laps	16
15	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	+2 Laps	15
16	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	+2 Laps	14
17	Conor Daly	Meyer Shank Racing	+2 Laps	13
18	Rinus Veekay	Ed Carpenter Racing	+2 Laps	12
19	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	+3 Laps	11
20	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	+3 Laps	10
21	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	+4 Laps	9
22	Santino Ferrucci	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	+5 Laps	8
23	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	+6 Laps	7
24	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Ed Carpenter Racing	Retired (contact)	6
25	Takuma Sato	Chip Ganassi Racing	+13 Laps	5
26	Augustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	+14 Laps	5
27	Benjamin Pedersen	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	DSQ (performance)	5
28	Sting Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing	DSP (safety)	5