NEWTON, Iowa — Josef Newgarden began the day upset after he qualified third for Saturday’s Hy-Vee Homefront 250 at Iowa Speedway.
He was short, terse and determined.
Later on Saturday, he went out and whipped the field on the 0.894-mile short oval to score his fifth career victory at Iowa Speedway and 28th career NTT IndyCar Series win. More importantly, he trimmed 28 points off Alex Palou’s lead in the IndyCar championship.
Palou finished eighth for Chip Ganassi Racing in the No. 10 American Legion Honda and now leads Newgarden by 98 points heading into Sunday’s second race of the Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend at Iowa, the Hy-Vee One Step 250 presented by Gatorade.
After starting off the day miffed that he didn’t win the pole, he lectured the field on the style of racing that he encountered as the leader of the race on Saturday.
“There’s a lot of people,” Newgarden said when asked who the offenders were. “There’s a lot of people. It’s one thing if you’re leading the race. If you’re leading the race, you’re really within your right. If you’re fighting with people around you, seventh, eighth, ninth place, you’re all fighting. You’re within your right to fight as hard as possible.
“I think, the way the rule was written, it’s also legal for them to fight to the death to stay on the lead lap in front of the leader. It is legal. I’m just telling you, you’re not making any friends when you do it. There are 20 laps to go in the race, and I was getting driven like it was literally to the death for the end of the Indy 500. It was just crazy. I couldn’t believe the way people were mirror driving.
“I’ve never seen it that bad here. Normally if you’re the leader, you’re not getting a handout, but you’re at least getting the courtesy that you are the leader and you’re about to get lapped. You don’t have to pull over, but just don’t be aggressive and weave in front of the leader, block the leader, chop the leader.
“Like there’s just a point where you’ve got to understand that that comes back around. If you do that to someone, I’m going to fence you the next time I see you. If you’re the leader the next time, I am going to do you so dirty if you did that to me.
“It’s common sense. Everybody in the paddock knows it, and they’re just — for whatever reason, there’s just people who just can’t get it. You know what, if they can’t learn it by now, they’ll probably never learn. I guess where I’m going with this, you can tell I’m frustrated by it, which a lot of people are. I can’t change people’s behavior.
“If they’re going to continue to do that, I have to study and figure out how to counteract it because that’s how they’re going to play. I’m going to assume they’re going to play like that tomorrow, and I’ve got to be in a better position and better equipped handle it.”
Teammate Scott McLaughlin at Team Penske finished 3.3755 seconds behind Newgarden in second place and indicated he had the same issues with lapped traffic on Saturday. McLaughlin said he was going to “talk to some people tonight.”
Newgarden has the same idea.
“I’ll go talk to some people too,” the winner said. “They need to know. Look, it’s not cool. It’s not cool. If you want to play that game, that’s fine, but you should be thinking long term.”
For the short term, Newgarden was successful in narrowing the gap on Palou. He hopes to chop away on that lead further in Sunday’s race. Newgarden will start seventh and Palou 12th in the 250-lap contest on Sunday.
For the second-straight race, Team Penske’s Will Power will start on the pole and McLaughlin will start on the outside of Row 1.
“I think we did a good job today recovering,” Newgarden said. “I was really proud of the team. To feel disappointed with qualifying and then to just really improve the race car and do a great job today, I’m proud of that, but that doesn’t guarantee tomorrow either. I think Scott’s going to be really good. Pato, he’s going to come back better.
“I think Will’s going to be strong. You never know who else is going to improve overnight. I’m focused on being better tomorrow because I’m going to assume that everyone else is going to pick up their game.”
Newgarden believes if he can trim another 28 points out of Palou’s lead on Sunday, that would put him 70 behind the leader with five races remaining. It would be “game on” at that point for the championship, in Newgarden’s mind.
“I do,” he said. “That’s a great chunk. You win another time, what does that put you at, I don’t know, 72? (Actually 70). That would be great. That would be great. We’re going to for sure need that.
“You can’t spin this any way. I’m not telling myself a story to make myself feel better tomorrow. There’s no doubt we have to win a lot of races, and Alex has to inevitably at some point hit bad luck. It’s just the way this whole thing goes. If that doesn’t happen, then we’re still going to focus on winning races, and hopefully we have a lot of wins on the year and we get close.
“Or maybe just winning a bunch of races and he doesn’t need the bad luck, and that’s enough to get us the championship.
“I have no idea how this is all going to play out, but yeah, tomorrow — they all matter at this point. What is there, six to go? They’re all going to be critical. We can’t afford a bad weekend anymore. He can, but we’ve got to be pretty much perfect, which when it’s like that, it just almost doesn’t matter. Like what’s going to be is going to be. I think a lot of people are in this mindset. They’re just trying to win races.
“It’s kind of a good way to go about it because you can’t just take little bites out of him. It’s just not going to work. You’ve got to be hitting it with a hammer and hoping that fate kind of swings back your way. So, I hope we get that, but there’s just no telling if that’s going to happen.”
Newgarden’s No. 2 Hitachi Chevrolet won the race at an average speed of 143.155 mph. There were five lead changes with Newgarden leading the most laps in the race at 129. Teammate Power led 119. Palou and Takuma Sato each led one lap apiece during pit stops.
Newgarden took the lead on lap 127 and never looked back.
Once he dealt with traffic, it was onto the checkered flag, into victory lane and hopes of repeating on Sunday.