MADISON, Ill. — After hobbling around for two weeks with an injured left foot, Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden was able to use his right foot to stand on the accelerator and win Sunday night’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
The NTT IndyCar Series star won at the 1.25-mile track for the sixth time in his career and was able to prove once again that he is the king of the short ovals.
It was a wild race and a very late night as the contest ended past 12:21 p.m. Eastern Time, 11:21 local time at the track located on the Eastern Side of the Mississippi River just outside St. Louis.
Newgarden defeated Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson by 0.6613 seconds.
“Let’s go,” Newgarden radioed his crew. “I love it.”
The victory was Newgarden’s second short oval win of the season. On March 7, he won at Phoenix Raceway.
Ericsson led the most laps in the race with 114. Newgarden led 53 laps, Alex Palou 49 and Scott Dixon 32 in the 260-lap contest. The other two drivers that led laps were Caio Collet with seven and Christian Rasmussen with five.
It was a true night race that started late enough that most of the action would be under the lights. But with two red flags and several caution periods for rain, it made for a late night for the near capacity crowd at World Wide Technology Raceway and for the audience that watched the action on FOX.
It was the 34th IndyCar wins of Newgarden’s career, moving him into a ninth-place tie with Al Unser, Jr. on IndyCar’s all-time list.
“I don’t know what was going on there with Christian Rasmussen, but I was going back by him,” Newgarden said. “We had everything we needed with Team Penske. It was a methodical win tonight. You have to give Marcus Ericsson a lot of credit. He drove a great race and could have won this as well, but this team did a great job and won the race.
“It’s always the car. If I’m winning races, it’s because of the car, as simple as that.”
It was a second-best for Ericsson who drove from 12th to second.
“I’m very proud of my performance and our performance, but at the same time it’s tough to be that close and lead that many laps,” Ericsson said. “I thought we had something for him at the end, but he was a bit too strong. Still a good result for us.
“But, man, I wanted that one at the end.”
Rasmussen improved by 16 spots in the race to finish third.
“I was ripping the top the whole race,” Rasmussen said. “My car didn’t work super well at the bottom, so we ripped the top. We were moving forward and had a good race car. We didn’t have the ultimate pace, and I couldn’t hang with them, we were super strong on tire deg. Even though I was falling a little bit back, we came back super strong at the end.
“We had a third-place car, and we finished third in the race. We’ve had a terrible year, and a podium gives us some good momentum.”
Point leader Alex Palou finished 17th after running out of fuel on pit lane before making his final pit stop. His points lead over Kyle Kirkwood was 62 entering the race but it is now 49 heading into IndyCar’s first off weekend since May 3.
The start of the race was moved up to 8:01 Central Time because of potential rain in the area.
When John Bommarito gave the command to start engines at 8:01, all cars except the one driven by rookie Dennis Hauger fired. Hauger’s car was rolled off the grid and did not start the race because of a mechanical issue.
Alex Palou started on the pole and led the first 46 laps. On Lap 47, Ericsson swept past Palou for the lead in Turn 3 for the first lead change in the race. It’s the first time he had led laps on an oval since this race last year.
Dixon was the leader as pit stops began before the leader, Palou, approached Nolan Siegel’s Chevrolet to put it down a lap. The two cars touched sending Siegel’s car into the outside wall and the yellow flight came on for the first time in the race.
The incident between the two was under review by Race Control but ruled no penalty.
“I thought I had left enough room, I thought there was a lot of room down low,” Siegel said. “You have to turn in at some point. I thought there was enough room, but I haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t want to comment.”
The race resumed on Lap 63 with Ericsson leading Newgarden and Palou.
At Lap 90, Ericsson continued to lead Newgarden, Palou, Malukas and Kirkwood with Caio Collet running sixth.
At Lap 100, Ericsson led Newgarden by 0.8874 seconds as his tires were starting to fade.
Newgarden pitted on Lap 107 but had a brief delay in the stop. Malukas stopped on the next lap, but it was Rinus VeeKay that had a better stop and got out ahead of Malukas. Palou pitted on Lap 110 with Collet and Dixon in the lead.
That pit stop had some urgency because rain was 30 miles away. It was Christian Rasmussen that had the best pit stop of all as he was ahead of Palou, Kirkwood, VeeKay and Malukas after pit stops were complete.
Graham Rahal crashed in Turn 4 on Lap 113 for another caution period. At that time, Dixon and Power were the top two drivers but had yet to make their second pit stop.
During the caution, Dixon and Power both pitted on Lap 120 for four tires and fuel.
“Christian was on fresh tires, went to my outside, I was trying to stay one lane in and when I went in, it was way more marbling than I expected and the car just turned around,” Rahal said. “These things happen. It’s quite frustrating, though.”
At the halfway point under caution on Lap 130, Ericsson was the leader ahead of Collet, Dixon, Newgarden, Power and Rasmussen.
The Red Flag came out on Lap 137 for rain and 9:23 p.m. Central Time with Ericsson scored as the leader ahead of Collet, Dixon, Newgarden, Power, Rasmussen, Palou, Kirkwood, VeeKay, Malukas and McLaughlin.
“Honestly, to be completely honest, I don’t care because he has the fastest car out there,” said Ericsson’s wife, Iris, whose first IndyCar race was the 2022 Indy 500 that Ericsson won.
During the red flag, Ericsson sat in his car and talked about his chance at a potential victory.
“I wish we could do 500 laps, this Honda is on rails tonight,” Ericsson said. “Let’s keep going.
“It’s been hard work. I’ve been working hard for this race studying a lot of hours trying to figure out how to be stronger. We have a really good race car.
“I could feel the impact with Josef Newgarden a little bit. It was hard, but fair and good racing.”
At 9:47 p.m. CT, IndyCar gave the order for drivers to leave their cars, meaning the delay was either going to be extended, or the race would end prematurely.
“It’s been a little bit tough, we’re not going to lie,” Malukas said. “We missed the mark on where the setup needed to be, and I knew five laps into the race; this was going to be a long race. We are limited to what we can do.
“It’s a little bit of survival, but the cooler it gets the worse the car is right now. We don’t have the pace unfortunately.
“It’s like we are going to get a little bit here and there, but not the big chunk that we need. I wish we could go back in time and make the changes we need to make.”
Palou was asked during the break about his contact with Siegel earlier in the contest.
“It didn’t really impact the car, I really need to see what is happening there,” Palou said. “The car is good. I just couldn’t get through traffic like Marcus was and Josef were.”
At 9:51 p.m. CT, drivers were ordered back to their cars as the sprinkling began to taper off. The anticipated restart of engines was set for 10:01 p.m. CT.
There were 15 cars on the lead lap. Marcus Armstrong was the first driver one lap down in 16th place.
Among the crews that were setting up for pit stops before going back to green included Dixon, Palou, Rosenqvist, Kirkwood, Pato O’Ward and Malukas.
Ericsson led the field to the green flag on Lap 144, and it was back to racing.
Rasmussen was among the fastest cars on the track and had moved up to fourth place. At that point in the race, he had the most on-track passes with 30 followed by VeeKay with 28.
At Lap 170, there were less than 90 laps remaining and the racing was becoming frantic for fourth place. But at the front, Ericsson was leading Newgarden by 1.1220 seconds.
Kirkwood came onto pit lane on Lap 173, pretty early depending on what strategy his team wanted to implement. VeeKay pitted on lap later.
Ericsson pitted from the lead on Lap 177 and that put Newgarden into the lead. Newgarden pitted one lap later and Collet was the leader ahead of Dixon, Palou, O’Ward and Lundgaard.
Collett pitted on Lap 181 and Dixon was the new leader ahead of Palou, O’Ward and McLaughlin.
Dixon led Palou by 4.495 seconds on Lap 186.
Malukas pitted for the final time on Lap 193 after he was passed by Newgarden. He was going for the full push. Meantime, Dixon was able to stretch his lead by using better fuel mileage than his competition.
Rasmussen pitted on Lap 198, just as the yellow flag waved. Dixon was about to pit from the lead but with rain beginning to fall, Dixon was in position to win if he could maintain his speed without having to pit for fuel.
The Red Flag was displayed at 10:34 p.m. CT with Dixon leading ahead of Palou, Newgarden, Ericsson and Rasmussen on Lap 200l.
Newgarden sat in his car and gave his thoughts during the second red flag.
“I don’t have to make that call, I’ll leave that up to my great team, but I feel pretty spiky out there, I even whipped out my left leg tonight,” Newgarden said. “It feels pretty good out here. A lot of grip. Everyone has been racing fair. It’s been a fun race. It’s been a pretty chaotic race when you have the rain sometimes, but you have to take what you take.”
At 10:47 p.m. CT, the engines were refired and Dixon hit pit lane for emergency service, taking aways his chance to win the race. That put Palou back in the lead. The No. 9 crew gave Dixon two seconds worth of fuel and then would return for the rest of the pit stop once the pits were open.
However, Palou was able to stay out on track, even though he was using the same strategy as his teammate, Dixon.
Once the pits opened, Palou pitted but ran out of fuel while on pit lane. His pit box was all the way at pit out and was the last car to coast into his box. It caused a bottleneck for the rest of the cars making pit stops.
By running out of fuel, Palou’s engine could not refire. After the engine recycled, Palou returned to the track 19th, two laps down.
Dixon had to serve a penalty for entering the closed pits. The lapped down cars made their final stop, meaning everybody had fuel for the finish. But with the wave around, those cars that pitted were at the end of the lead lap.
After the chaos, Newgarden was the leader ahead of Rasmussen.
The green flag flew with 48 laps remaining the in race and Newgarden the leader ahead of Rasmussen.
The most exciting driver on short ovals, Rasmussen, drove like a Wildman and dove low into Turn 1 after almost touching Newgarden’s Chevrolet to take the lead.
As Rasmussen led the race, Ericsson closed to the rear of Newgarden’s Chevrolet. But Newgarden was determined to regain the lead and took the positions on Lap 219 in another side-by-side battle, but Rasmussen threw a power move in Turns 1 and 2.
It was a back-and-forth, lap after lap battle with 29 laps to go, and rain moving in.
When Newgarden took the lead on Lap 221, he opened a 0.5-second gap as Ericsson lurked back in third place.
With 24 laps remaining, the yellow flag came out one more time after Collet’s car was on fire. Newgarden was the leader ahead of Ericsson, who had passed Rasmussen just seconds before the yellow.
When the pits opened on Lap 230, P1 to P8 were on used tires and Positions 9 and back were on new tires.
The pace car pulled off with 26 laps to go, and all cars had enough fuel to make it to the finish.
Newgarden was the leader ahead of Ericsson and Rasmussen. McLaughlin was the fastest car on the track and began to slice his way through the field, but would there be enough time?
McLaughlin moved up four places since the restart and continued his charge to the front. Will Power had moved up six positions since the restart and was eighth.
With 15 laps to go, Ericsson began to close the gap on the leader. With 12 laps to go, Newgarden was able to open the lead. The real battle was for third place between Rasmussen and VeeKay.
It was one of IndyCar’s longest nights, but it had a frantic finish that made it the “Late, Late Show.”
