Newgarden breaks bad luck streak, takes dominant win in Mid-Ohio.

IndyCar put on a show this weekend, going down to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the Honda Indy 200. Josef Newgarden took his third Pole Award in a row, as he entered the race weekend the recipient of some truly terrible luck, but still steady at fourth in the championship standings. The points leader, Alex Palou, started the race in P7, while his championship rival Pato O’Ward started in 20th, giving Palou quite a head start on the McLaren driver. 

The race started with a bang, as a stack up of cars on the first lap caused a spin for both Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe, collecting the newly returning Felix Rosenqvist in the process. Hunter-Reay suffered minor damage, and all drivers were able to continue. Restarting on lap 4, polesitter Newgarden got a jump off, but a big move by Scott Dixon on Will Power sent Power spinning on the first lap back green, and as Power spun back on track he collected Ed Jones, knocking the left front wheel loose of Jones’ car and ending the race for both drivers. A visibly unhappy Power said, “I have no idea why Scott squeezed me that much, I had nowhere to go.” After cleaning up the wreck, the race restarted on lap 9, and once again Josef Newgarden stretched his legs on the start. This time it stayed green, and Newgarden led all the way to pit stops, surrendering his lead to Colton Herta, who stayed out longer than Newgarden to attempt an overcut. Unfortunately for Herta, he had a twenty-five second stop, as issues with the fueling of the car dropped him from P2 on the track to fighting for P7 with Graham Rahal. 

Now with an eight second lead over Marcus Ericsson, Newgarden paced the field for the rest of the second stint, facing no real competition from the field. The field stayed calm and green throughout the run, with no major moves being made. The final round of pit stops began at lap 55, as the field cycled through. Herta, in the middle of attempting to recover from his botched pit stop earlier in the race, suffered another issue as his car stalled in the pits, forcing yet another slow stop for the Andretti driver. As the laps wound down, the familiar feeling of worry began to creep back in for Newgarden fans, as Marcus Ericsson began tracking down Newgarden, cutting the lead by a half of a second every lap. The situation felt overly familiar to the second Belle Isle race, as Newgarden had dominated the race, and was now seeing his lead shrink by leaps and bounds. Ericsson drew to within half a second on the final lap, but was unable to catch the Penske driver as Newgarden took the first Penske win of the year, breaking the streak of late race failures for the organization. Alex Palou took third place, followed by Dixon and Rossi. 

The points picture remains the same, as Palou slightly extends his points lead over O’Ward courtesy of his podium, and Dixon and Newgarden hold steady in 3rd and 4th. However, Marcus Ericsson leapt three spots up to fifth in the points, buoyed by his second podium of the year. IndyCar takes a month off, and will return in Nashville on August 8th.