The Captain has a new lieutenant in his Chevy army and his name is Josef Newgarden. Roger Penske’s most recent addition to his IndyCar empire made another statement in his debut season with the defending series champions as he swept past teammate Will Power on Lap 13 to take the lead and never looked back.
If outfoxing the pole-sitter by swinging left and right before diving down the inside of Turn 4 to snatch the lead wasn’t impressive enough, Newgarden proceeded to put his foot down and pulled away from Power with ease. As the lead grew to more than seven seconds at the midway point of the 90-lap contest, the rest of the field knew it would be fighting over the remaining podium positions.
“Well, I’ve got a great crew,” Newgarden said after leading 73 laps and crossing the finish line 5.1 seconds ahead of the Australian. “When they give me a car like this, I don’t want to say it’s easy, but it’s easier at least. I think we’ve been hitting on all cylinders. The car was really fast [on Firestone] reds [and] blacks. We’re getting after it, I’ll tell you that.”
With Newgarden going on to score his second consecutive win and third of the season – more than any other IndyCar driver – the young Tennessean also took the lead in the Drivers’ championship.
Power scrapped with Graham Rahal as the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver settled for third (+6.3s) at his home race and the top Honda representative at the Honda Indy 200 event.
“It was OK, but we had too much push on reds,” Power said of his car’s main handling deficiency. “Solid day for points. We’re just going to keep making hay.”
Rahal could stay close to Power, but felt he had more speed to show if the Penske Chevy wasn’t creating a turbulent wake ahead of his car.
“It was a good run,” he said. “Our car had great pace, but we could never get in clean air. We’ll be back strong in Pocono.”
Penske’s Simon Pagenaud took a fighting fourth behind Rahal (+6.8s) and Andretti Autosport’s Takuma Sato, who started third, quickly faded and held onto cross the line in fifth (+7.3s). His teammate Alexander Rossi improved from ninth to sixth, but tangled with Andretti’s Ryan Hunter-Reay early in the race, which resulted in a spin for Hunter-Reay.
“I was on reds and he was on blacks,” Rossi said of having sticker tires to use in his overtaking attempt. “It’s unfortunate. You never want that to happen with a teammate.”
Like Sato, Castroneves also faded, dropping from fifth to seventh in his Penske entry (+11.6s), and behind him, a fiery Hunter-Reay drove through the field to secure eighth in his Honda.
“Josef, he was flying,” Castroneves said. “Man, I can’t wait to go to the next race and do better.”
Former championship leader Scott Dixon did his best to handle his second straight event where outright speed and good fortune eluded the Chip Ganassi Racing Honda driver. Slow pit stops and an ill-handling car conspired against the New Zealander, who went into Mid-Ohio with a slim three-point lead over Castroneves but left in third place in the championship.
“Really bizarre, even from the get-go,” he said. “We had no rear-end stability. I was holding the whole field up. As soon as I turned the wheel, it wanted to spin out. I think something mechanically is broken at the back of the car. [Then] we had a [wheel] gun failure. It was just one of those days where everything could possibly go wrong. We’ll keep digging here. It’s one to forget.”
The top 10 was completed by a highly impressive Conor Daly, who chased down his friend James Hinchcliffe during the final laps and earned his second-best result of 2017.
The one-car Rahal Letterman Lanigan team and Graham Rahal out-classed all of its rivals, barring Team Penske. Considering the might and resources of four-car teams like Andretti Autosport and Chip Ganassi Racing, the team sent yet another reminder of what quality staff and hard driving can return in the midst of monster programs. Dixon’s insane performance to hold onto a car that wanted to swap ends the entire race was another achievement that deserves praise.
Newgarden will enter the Pocono superspeedway with 453 points in hand as teammate Helio Castroneves (-7) and former championship leader Scott Dixon (-8) will have some ground to make up in their title bids.
“Oh, that’s great,” Newgarden said after learning he’d taken the championship lead. “I was wondering where [Scott] Dixon was. I was looking at all the cars around me and I go, ‘this has got to be a good points day for us.’ So, we’ve just got to keep it up. No mistakes. If we don’t have any mistakes, we’ve got plenty enough to win this championship. So, we’re going to keep at it and see what we’ve got for the last four races.”
