LEBANON, Tenn. — After one of the most disappointing seasons for Team Penske in decades, Josef Newgarden picked up his first victory of the season in the final NTT IndyCar Series race of the year.
Newgarden won Sunday’s Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix, defeating series champion Alex Palou at Nashville Superspeedway.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was third followed by Kyffin Simpson and Conor Daly.
Newgarden defeated Palou by 0.5021 seconds.
“A pretty good day,” a happy team owner Roger Penske said outside victory lane. “It was a good race, wasn’t it?”
A late-race restart with 11 laps to go set up a wild scramble that included Newgarden, Palou, McLaughlin and Simpson.
A season’s worth of frustration boiled over with Newgarden’s race celebration. He went to the frontstretch, did a burnout then got out of his car and celebrated the victory by going into the grandstands with the crowd.
That was similar to his two celebrations after winning the 2023 and 2024 Indianapolis 500.
There was some wild action on the track, too.
Pole winner Pato O’Ward got a great jump at the start, but as the field went through Turn 2, last week’s race winner, Christian Rasmussen spun and backed into the Turn 2 wall for a caution.
The green flag waved on Lap 9 with O’Ward leading Palou, McLaughlin, Malukas and Dixon. By Lap 10, Palou went to the high line in a side-by-side battle with O’Ward.
During that battle, Palou was credited with two laps led, but O’Ward would not give up the position.
Palou was proving the high lane could work, and O’Ward was proving he wasn’t going to yield an inch of the inside lane to the four-time IndyCar dhampion.
At Lap 25, O’Ward led Palou by 0.7451 seconds.
By Lap 32, A.J. Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci had improved six positions up to sixth place. Conor Daly had improved nine positions, from 24th to 15th.
By Lap 40, O’Ward’s lead was 3.9514 seconds.
On Lap 51, Palou had a right front tire failure and dove into the pits for a pit stop. On went the softer Reds and away Palou went. It essentially turned into a green flag pit stop so the time loss was minimal.
He returned to the track in 25th place.
Colton Herta was the leader when he pitted on Lap 58. Scott Dixon pitted and that put Team Penske’s Will Power into the lead before he pitted on Lap 60.
By the time the pit stop sequence was completed, O’Ward was back in the lead ahead of David Malukas and Palou third after he got around Scott McLaughlin.
Of the top 10 cars on the track, Malukas was the only driver on the harder compound. Each team had to do a mandatory two sets of the softer Firestone Red tires.
Malukas tried to pass Louis Foster’s Honda in Turn 1, but the two cars hit each other, sending Malukas’ Chevrolet into a hard hit into the outside wall. Malukas blamed Foster for triggering the crash as Malukas was trying to pass the lapped car.
But Foster was also all the way down on the yellow line and off the throttle.
“That guy is an idiot, he just drove down into me,” Foster radioed to his crew.
Malukas needed assistance out of his crashed car and had sat on the sidepod of his car, obviously suffering the effects of the crash.
Pit lane opened on Lap 87 with the lead contenders all pitting. O’Ward was the first off pit road, but McLaughlin was able to get out ahead of Palou.
There was damage to the SAFER Barrier as track workers tried to repair the damage.
That allowed every car on the track to make pit stops, putting the field back on the same strategy. Santino Ferrucci, however, was put all the way to the back of the pack for improper lane usage.
Also, Race Control assessed Foster a drive-through penalty for blocking in the incident that sent Malukas to the wall.
The field lined up for a restart on Lap 101 with O’Ward leading McLaughlin, Palou, Newgarden and Herta to the start/finish line.
Herta moved up to third place and then dove low to pass McLaughlin for second place in Turn 3.
Power passed Newgharden for fourth place and then went to the high side to pass Palou for third.
Power then went high to pass Herta for second place and began to reel in O’Ward.
Just as David Malukas was being loaded onto a media helicopter for injuries from his crash, race leader O’Ward crashed into the Turn 2 wall on Lap 127.
O’Ward explained what happened.
“Front right tire failure, it’s one of the worst feelings,” O’Ward said. “It’s not the first time that has happened to me here. I had one fail during a test.
“I feel bad for the team. We had a rocket ship. To end the year when you have such a great car and a great weekend, I feel for the team, and I feel for everybody.
“I hope Firestone can correct that because the guys who are hitting the wall at 200 mph are us and you can really feel that hit.”
That put Power into the lead ahead of Herta, Newgarden, Palou and Dixon.
As the field ran a lap waiting for pit road to open, Malukas’ status was announced by IndyCar Director of Medical Affairs, Dr. Julia Vaizer.
“David is doing well, he is awake and alert, he is really good spirts, but we are sending him to a trauma center for further evaluation,” said Dr. Vaizer.
Just when the race appeared to be in Power’s control, a poor pit stop on Lap 127, followed by Power stalling his car wiped away any advantage he had built during his wild drive to the front.
Power went from first to 20th place.
It was ruled that Power did not get out ahead of the pace car and would have to drop one lap down.
Also, Herta was penalized for an unsafe release on pit road and had to drop to the rear of the field.
Alexander Rossi was the leader because he did not pit. He was followed by Newgarden, McLaughlin, Palou and Armstrong.
The green flag waved to resume racing on Lap 141 with Rossi leading Newgarden and McLaughlin. Daly raced his way up to fifth place.
On Lap 147, Newgarden dove to the inside of Rossi in Turn 3 and passed for the lead.
Rossi pitted on Lap 165 and that moved him back to 19th.
On Lap 175, Newgarden led teammate McLaughlin by 1.3843 seconds. Marcus Armstrong was third followed by Daly and Kirkwood.
Palou pitted with 44 laps to go for his final pit stop of the race.
Newgarden dove onto pit lane as the leader with 39 laps left. His crew nailed the pit stop and got him in and out in 7.1 seconds.
Armstrong also pitted on that lap. Two laps later, McLaughlin pitted as the leader. Daly was the leader ahead of Rinus VeeKay, Herta, Marcus Ericsson and Devlin DeFrancesco.
When the pit stop sequence began to unscramble Palou was ahead of McLaughlin and Newgarden, effectively giving him the race lead.
When Herta and Ericsson both pitted on Lap 191, Palou was the leader with McLaughlin 0.494 seconds behind.
Palou, though, had lapped traffic in front of him including Nolan Siegel. That held him up and allowed McLaughlin to pass Palou for the lead on Lap 200.
Two laps later, Newgarden passed Palou for second putting the two Team Penske drivers in the top two positions.
With 21 laps to go, however, McLaughlin’s No. 3 bobbled in Turn 2 and barely tapped the Turn 2 wall. The caution flag waved.
