Testing SpeedwayMedia.com

Tag: NTT IndyCar

  • Alex Palou fights back with Portland victory

    Alex Palou fights back with Portland victory

    Following a rough couple of weeks with a crash at Gateway and an engine failure at the Indianapolis Grand Prix, Chip Ganassi’s Alex Palou fought back into the championship points lead with a victory at Portland International Speedway Sunday afternoon. Palou qualified on the pole and took the lead on Lap 86 to score his third victory of the 2021 season.

    “It was massive,” Palou said about the victory. “I don’t think that much about the three wins or two wins. I think that’s important but not super. What I think is important is that even having a really bad start of the race, we were able to fight. At some point we were behind Rossi and Dixon, so we overtook them even on the same strategy. I’m really proud of the work we did today together with our guys at the No. 10 PNC Bank Honda car. And yeah, it’s good to have three wins this year.”

    Meanwhile, Alexander Rossi has had a tough season with two DNFs and no podium finishes. However, Rossi had a decent day in the No. 27 NAPA Autoparts Honda earning his first podium of the year after finishing second in the Grand Prix of Portland.

    “Yeah, I mean, I’m glad it all came back to us because we all would have looked pretty silly, I guess,” Rossi said about his day. I thought it was pretty low grip in Turn 1 when Felix, I guess — when Scott and Alex and them kind of slid through, I didn’t really have anywhere to go, and I thought if we got back to the styrofoam chicane, that was acceptable. But it was self-penalizing because we all went from like first, second, third to sixth, seventh, eighth, and then they’re like, oh, you’re going to 24th. It was like, okay, cool.”

    “But fortunately it all came around, and as Scott said, it put us on the two-stop, which is ultimately the strategy to be on.”

    The pace of the car was good all weekend. I think we gave it everything we could there on that last stint, and the red tires had a window of time where they were a little bit better, and then it was just tough with dirty air, and Alex didn’t make a mistake. It’s always going to be hard to just go and drive around the pole sitter, but ultimately it was a good day for the team, good in pit lane, great calls, so yeah, started second, finished second.”

    For the first time in two-years, the NTT IndyCar Series returned to Portland International Raceway with just three races remaining in the 2021 season. Pato O’Ward entered the race with a nine point lead over Palou.

    As the field took the green flag for the 110-lap event, there was a massive melee in Turn 1 involving multiple cars. The No. 7 of Felix Rosenqvist turned into the No. 9 of Scott Dixon, which then caused a traffic jam. Others involved were the 51 of Romain Grosjean, the 06 of Helio Castroneves, the 12 of Will Power and the 45 of Oliver Askew.

    After multiple laps ran under yellow with IndyCar shuffling the lineup order, the restart came at Lap 11 with Graham Rahal and Pato O’Ward leading the way.

    Early in the first stint, O’Ward led the first 29 laps heading into the first stop. However, with varying strategies, Rahal stayed out one lap later and did not pit until Lap 35. When Rahal pitted, the Indiana native came out in front of O’Ward on the fronstretch. Rahal cycled back into the lead on Lap 45 and led O’Ward by 2.3 seconds. He then stretched the lead by 3.5 seconds five laps later.

    During the ongoing pit stops, the second caution flew on Lap 51 when the No. 77 of Callum llott came to a stop in Turn 1. The yellow created a restart on Lap 57 (just two laps past halfway) with Rahal and Ed Jones on the front row, creating one more pit stop for the field.

    After the restart, Rossi moved into the fifth position after making a three wide move into Turn 1. With Rossi moving into the top five, Rahal continued to lead second place Jones by 1.6 seconds with 40 laps to go. On Lap 74, Rahal and Jones made their final stop with hopes of battling it out for the win. However, others stayed out longer including eventual race winner Alex Palou who didn’t make his stop until Lap 78 for four tires and fuel.

    Palou came out ahead and cycled into the lead, but another caution came with 25 to go for Simon Pagenaud who spun in Turn 8 after contact with Will Power. One more yellow was caused on the Lap 90 restart, as the No. 45 of Askew stalled when the No. 14 of Bourdais made contact.

    After the final yellow of the day, an 18-lap dash to the finish was set up with leaders Palou and Rossi. With cloud cover in the area, Rossi was able to use that to his advantage and decrease the lead to 0.830 seconds with 13 to go. However, race leader Palou kept Rossi at bay with a manageable gap inside the last 10 laps.

    As the checkered flag flew, Alex Palou took home the third checkered flag of his career in just his 27th NTT IndyCar Series start. Rossi finished 1.2 seconds back in second, Scott Dixon third, Jack Harvey fourth, and Josef Newagarden rounded out the top five finishers.

    Even though Dixon is 49 points behind in the standings, Palou’s teammate believes he still has a shot at the championship and doesn’t mind helping Palou win the title when it comes down to it.

    “I don’t know, try and win,” Dixon said. “It’s definitely been a trying season for us, but ultimately if it comes down to we need to help Alex, that’s fine, too. I think for us it’s about keeping the championship at home and at the team.”

    “So yeah, it’s just the way it rolls sometimes. But yeah, we’ll — obviously we’ve seen it. We saw it at St. Louis how quickly it can flip. We’ve seen how quickly it can flip this weekend. Unless you’re out, you’re not out. We’ve won championships on a tiebreaker. It’s all possible.”

    Palou led three times for 29 laps en route to victory and takes over the championship points by 25 over Pato O’Ward.

    Official Results following the Grand Prix of Portland.

    1. Alex Palou, led 29 laps
    2. Alexander Rossi
    3. Scott Dixon, led four laps
    4. Jack Harvey, led five laps
    5. Josef Newgarden
    6. Fleix Rosenqvist
    7. Marcus Ericsson, led one lap
    8. Colton Herrta
    9. Scott McLaughlin, led five laps
    10. Graham Rahal, led 36 laps
    11. Ed Jones, led two laps
    12. Takuma Sato
    13. Will Power
    14. Pato O’Ward, led 28 laps
    15. Ryan Hunter-Reay
    16. Conor Daly
    17. Rinus VeeKay
    18. Sebastien Bourdias
    19. Max Chilton
    20. Jimmie Johnson
    21. Simon Pagenaud, 1 lap down
    22. Romain Grosjean, 15 laps down
    23. Helio Castroneves, 19 laps down
    24. Oliver Askew, OUT, Contact
    25. Callum llott, OUT, Mechanical
    26. Dalton Kellett, OUT, Mechanical
    27. James Hinchcliffe, OUT, Contact

    Up Next: The NTT IndyCar Series will continue to stay out west as they head to Laguna Seca for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey at 3 p.m. ET live on NBC.

  • Josef Newarden prevails at Gateway with victory, closes in on points lead

    Josef Newarden prevails at Gateway with victory, closes in on points lead

    Josef Newgarden and the No. 2 Penske team navigated through early chaos at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway to score his second win of the 2021 NTT IndyCar Season. The Nashville, Tennessee native took the lead on Lap 80 and only surrendered the lead a couple of times before regaining the lead on Lap 210 and going on to win his third Gateway victory.

    “Yeah, I think so,” Newgarden said about the victory. “It (winning) definitely helps a lot (closing in on points lead). I was surprised when I saw the early wreck. Will and me were talking about it. Yeah, everyone was good, which is great. But it’s about time we got something to come our way a little bit. That’s what it felt like.

    “Yeah, it does help a lot. It helped a lot today. A win helps a lot. The team did a great job. Will was super quick this weekend. I thought Scott McLaughlin did a great job for us. He came and tested here. He’s a rookie that never has driven on ovals before this year. He helped develop a lot of the things I ran on the car here.

    “Everybody did a great job of pitching in this weekend. We had great cars. The circumstances have played favorably into helping us get back into this race, which is what we’ve been working towards. I feel really confident about where we’re going.”

    Before the green flag flew, qualifying was held earlier in the afternoon and Will Power scored his 63rd career NTT IndyCar Series pole laying down a lap of 24.8508 seconds and 181.081 mph.

    As the 260-lap race got underway, four cautions slowed the race pace. Three cautions flew in the first 20 laps of the race. The yellow flew as early as Lap 3 when the No. 18 of Ed Jones slide up into the No. 15 of Graham Rahal in Turn 1 and both cars crashed. Another interesting yellow occurred on Lap 17 for the No. 22 of Simon Pagenaud, when his right-front wing made contact with his teammate Newgarden. Following the incident, Pagenaud’s right-front wing fell off as a result.

    A more significant issue happened on Lap 64 that involved championship contenders Alex Palou and Scott Dixon. Both Palou and Dixon were involved in an accident in Turn 1 after the No. 21 of Rinus VeeKay turned into Palou, which then caused Palou to turn into his teammate, Dixon. With Dixon and Palou out of the race, this accident caused major championship implications as Dixon and Palou lost numerous points.

    After the stop-and-go pace in the first half, there was a long stretch of green-flag racing. Andretti Autosports’ Colton Herta led early but was overtaken for the lead by Newgarden on Lap 76. From there, Newgarden maintained a sizeable gap over second-place Alexander Rossi.

    The lead changed again following the Lap 133 pit stops. Newgarden was able to come out as the leader briefly before second-place Herta overpowered Newgarden heading into Turn 1.

    Herta led for 45 laps after taking the lead from Newgarden. Unfortunately, during Herta’s scheduled stop on Lap 185, the Andretti Autosport driver night ended early, as he broke a right-rear driveshaft.

    Newgarden once again cycled back into the lead one lap later after Herta’s misfortune, but this time, Alexander Rossi who was looking to turn his season around was lurking in the second position. Rossi was maintaining his pace to Newgarden before his bad luck continued. On Lap 200, Rossi brought out the last caution of the night when his No. 27 NAPA AutoParts machine hit the wall in Turn 2 creating the second DNF of the season.

    Succeeding the final yellow, it seemed as though the race would be Newgarden’s to lose as he would have championship points leader Pato O’Ward chasing him down in the final laps. As the laps continued to wind down, O’Ward cut the gap to 0.4951 seconds on Lap 215 and stayed near Newgarden by half of a second. Inside five to go, O’Ward would need help from lap cars or a quick yellow to be able to have a chance at Newgarden. Unfortunately for O’Ward, he came up just a bit short as Newgarden scored his second win of the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season and closed in on the points battle having a 22 point deficit.

    O’Ward however leads the points by 10 over Alex Palou with just three races left in the season.

    “It’s a very big points day for us,” O’Ward said about taking the points lead. “To be honest, man, it’s so tight. There’s still three races to go, 150 points on the table. Yeah, I mean, this means we’re going on the right path. We came off a solid run in Indy road course, now we have a podium with second. It would be great to rack up a couple more, a few more podiums. Yeah, man, we’re just going to push until the checkered flag waves in Long Beach and see where we stand.”

    Pole sitter Power had a quiet, but solid night as the Australian wrapped up the podium finishers with third place.

    “Yeah, actually I was really happy to finish third,” Power said. “Definitely didn’t have the car to challenge for the win. Yeah, struggled a little bit to get the car in a window. Just did a really clean race, clean pit stops, no mistakes. Yeah, stoked to be third.

    There were six cautions for 49 laps and six leaders among 11 lead changes. Newgarden led four times for 138 laps to victory.

    There were also three penalties handed out during the race. Takuma Sato was penalized for jumping the start on Lap 10, Ed Carpenter for avoidable contact on Lap 13 and Romain Grosjean for unsafe release on Lap 58.

    Official Results following the Bommarito 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway:

    1. Josef Newgarden, led 138 laps
    2. Pato O’Ward
    3. Will Power, led one lap
    4. Scott McLaughlin
    5. Sebastien Bourdais, led 18 laps
    6. Takuma Sato
    7. Ryan Hunter-Reay
    8. Simon Pagenaud, led one lap
    9. Marcus Ericsson
    10. Jack Harvey
    11. Conor Daly
    12. Dalton Kellett
    13. Tony Kanaan
    14. Romain Grosjean, 1 lap down
    15. James Hinchcliffe, 17 laps down
    16. Felix Rosenqvist, OUT, Mechanical
    17. Alexander Rossi, OUT, Contact
    18. Colton Herta, led 101 laps, OUT, Contact
    19. Scott Dixon, OUT, Contact
    20. Alex Palou, OUT, Contact
    21. Rinus VeeKay, OUT, Contact
    22. Ed Carpenter, OUT, Contact
    23. Graham Rahal, OUT, Contact
    24. Ed Jones, OUT, Contact

    Up Next: The NTT IndyCar Series takes a couple of weeks off before finishing out the season on the west coast with just three races left. Their next race is Sunday, September 12 at Portland live on NBCSN at 3 p.m. ET.

  • Newgarden dominates Mid-Ohio for first win of the season

    Newgarden dominates Mid-Ohio for first win of the season

    Starting from the pole and leading all but eight laps, Josef Newgarden became the winningest American in the NTT IndyCar Series on a special holiday weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course as he claimed his first win of the season.

    However, the victory wasn’t all that easy as he had to fend off a hard-charging Marcus Ericsson who closed the gap lap by lap inside the last 10 laps. Despite being challenged by the Chip Ganassi Racing driver, Newgarden secured the victory on the weekend of Roger Penske’s very first win as a car owner that came 50 years ago Saturday at Pocono.

    “Mainly focused on my pace,” Newgarden said about winning the Mid-Ohio race. “We were struggling with 10 laps to go. Super fast at the beginning of the stint. Felt like we could pull a gap on Marcus right off the bat out of a pit stop. Those last 10 laps, I was losing pace. I was just kind of calculating the pace loss, looking at where he was, looking at overtaking, all that. That kept me busy. That’s pretty much what I was focusing on. It’s not the thing you want to be kept busy with. You’d rather be busy looking at the gap growing and taking it easy. That was not the case.

    “It was a hard-fought win. I think we definitely had the car to win the race, but it didn’t come easy. These guys made us push for it and work. Yeah, very happy to get the win.”

    Ericsson erased a 10-second gap that was held by Newgarden in the remaining laps, only to come 0.8790 seconds short of overtaking Newgarden. The second place finish was Ericsson’s second podium finish since his win at the first Belle Isle race a few weeks ago.

    “Yeah, exactly,” Ericsson said about running out of time catching Newgarden. “We were hunting him down there. The Honda felt really good on the black tires especially. We lost a little bit too much time on the first stint on the reds. Gap was sort of too big. Another lap I think we could have really been challenging him. He was really struggling with his tires the last five laps. Just catching him quickly.

    “Anyway, I think it was a great day, great day for the team, to have me, Alex and Scott, P2, P3 and P4. It’s a strong result. Shows how strong we are at the moment. Me jumping up to fifth in the championship feels pretty good. Very happy with my day. Like I said, another lap or two would be even better, but I’ll take second today.”

    Newgarden’s dominant Mid-Ohio weekend started Saturday afternoon after qualifying on the pole for the 14th time of his career. The Team Penske driver got a good start on the initial start but had to keep patient as two yellow flags flew early in the race.

    The first yellow came on Lap 1 when the No. 28 of Ryan Hunter-Reay was turned by James Hinchcliffe and the No. 7 of Felix Rosenqvist was turned by Romain Grosjean causing a major lockup in Turn 4. The second yellow flew on the Lap 3 restart when the No. 12 of Will Power made slight contact with the left-rear of the No. 9 of Scott Dixon. Power appeared he was going to keep his car clean, but with the blinding Turn 5 hill, Power was pounded by the No. 18 of Ed Jones which saw both cars get major damage.

    Jones’s front was nearly destroyed as his left-front wheel was loose. Power’s car sat idle and received damage as well. Fortunately for both drivers, they were medically cleared from the incident, but neither returned to the race and finished 25th and 26th, respectively. Power however stated on the NBC broadcast that he had a bruised right wrist which was sore.

    The restart came on Lap 8 and once again, Newgarden continued to set the pace leading Colton Herta by 1.0 seconds. Meanwhile, the No. 14 of Sebastien Bourdais was penalized on Lap 12 for blocking the No. 51 of Grosjean. As a result, Bourdais had to give up two positions for the penalty.

    The first round of green-flag pit stops came as soon as Lap 22 when the No. 3 of Scott McLaughlin pit. But, the leaders, Dixon, Rossi and O’Ward, and eventually race leader Newgarden, didn’t make their stops until Lap 29 and 30. Herta used a different strategy and pitted one lap later on Lap 31 hoping to gain a sizable gap over Newgarden. Unfortunately for Herta, he did not beat Newgarden as Herta’s team had a fueling issue and had a 25-second stop with the Andretti team.

    The long pit stop saw Herta drop to seventh in the running order and 20 seconds back from the lead. The fueling issue was, as later reported by NBC, an issue with the fuel hose and not a human error made by the team.

    Halfway on Lap 40, Newgarden held Ericsson by 7.2 seconds, a comfortable lead heading into the final stops with 27 laps to go as Newgarden pit for the final time. Herta grabbed the lead momentarily, hoping to gap Newgarden. But the Andretti driver’s plan didn’t work as they had yet another longer stop.

    Eventually, Newgarden cycled out to the lead with 22 laps to go and led second place, Ericsson, by 6.7 seconds. From there, Ericsson closed the gap to where the lead was 4.814 seconds with 10 laps to go and then, cut the gap to 2.6 seconds with five to go.

    As Newgarden started to approach lap traffic toward the white flag, Ericsson needed another strong lap or a mistake by Newgarden to allow him to pass the leader to have any chance of winning. Despite Ericsson erasing a six-second difference, Newgarden held on and won for the 19th time of his NTT IndyCar Series career. Ericsson, Alex Palou, Scott Dixon, and Alexander Rossi rounded out the top five finishers.

    Alex Palou increased his championship points lead to 39 points over Pato O’Ward.

    “Yeah, we’re going to win this championship just by being here every weekend, getting some more wins,” Palou said on his Mid-Ohio run. “We always look at the championship. It’s good to have three cars now in the top five in the championship. Like Marcus said, that shows how strong we are as a team, how the team is working together. Yeah, super happy. But still, a long way to go. I mean, I would stop the count now, but I don’t think they allow me to do that (smiling). We’ll try to win some more races and be at the podium.”

    There were two cautions for six laps and five lead changes among three different leaders.

    Official Results following the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course:

    1. Josef Newgarden, led 73 laps
    2. Marcus Ericsson, led two laps
    3. Alex Palou
    4. Scott Dixon
    5. Alexander Rossi
    6. Graham Rahal
    7. Romain Grosjean
    8. Pato O’Ward
    9. Santino Ferrucci
    10. Takuma Sato
    11. Sebastien Bourdais
    12. Scott McLaughlin
    13. Colton Herta
    14. Simon Pagenaud
    15. Conor Daly
    16. Rinus VeeKay
    17. James Hinchcliffe
    18. Max Chilton
    19. Jack Harvey
    20. Ryan Norman, 1 lap down
    21. Dalton Kellett, 1 lap down
    22. Jimmie Johnson, 1 lap down
    23. Felix Rosenqvist, 2 laps down
    24. Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2 laps down
    25. Will Power, OUT, Contact
    26. Ed Jones, OUT, Contact

    Up Next: The NTT IndyCar Series will take a month off before resuming their 2021 season Sunday August 8 for the inaugural streets of Nashville live on NBCSN at 5:30 p.m./ET.

  • Will Power wins the NTT IndyCar Grand Prix of Portland

    Will Power wins the NTT IndyCar Grand Prix of Portland

    When Will Power starts winning, he becomes really hard to beat; first at Pocono, then the IndyCar race at Portland International Raceway where he earned his second win in three races.

    Power led the most laps of the day with 59 and seemed to have the race under control once Scott Dixon had a battery issue on lap 52, even a late Caution with Santino Ferrucci did not slow down Power, he was able to pull away on the final restart, and cruise to victory. Felix Rosenqvist finished second, with Alexander Rossi finishing third and early leader Colton Herta finishing fourth.

    “It was a pretty tough race,” Power said. “I had constant pressure from Rosenqvist at the end, we could pull away and I thought ‘oh this is going to be good’, and then the yellow flew and I thought, ‘oh come on, man’. Stoked to get in victory lane. Awesome, man. I’m exhausted. Mentally exhausted.”

    “I’ve had enough rough luck in races, I’ll take them anywhere I can get them,” when asked whether he could have caught Scott Dixon.

    After the first caution, there was a second caution right after, Ryan Hunter-Reay trying to keep his teammate Alexander Rossi back he overshot turn one and slammed right into Jack Harvey, taking out Harvey and putting himself several laps down. Then the race calmed down with Herta leading the field until lap 37 when his tires gave out and Scott Dixon and several other cars got past him. Dixon led until lap 52 when he had a battery issue and his car just stopped on pit road, costing him three laps. From there Will Power led the rest of the laps outside of cycling pit stops. Santino Ferrucci’s mechanical failure on lap 98 caused a quick caution which bunched up the field but did not change the overall outcome. As a whole the race had five leaders, eight lead changes, three cautions for 16 laps, and 16 cars finishing the race.

    The championship now only has three drivers left in contention, Josef Newgarden leading with 593 points, Alexander Rossi in second with 552 points and Simon Pagenaud in third with 551 points.

    The season finale for IndyCar will be on September 22 on NBC at 2:30 pm EST at Weathertech Raceway at Laguna Seca, with double points at it can be any of the three’s title to win.