Newgarden Wins At Gateway As O'Ward Takes Standings Lead
Grid Talk Reporter 04:34 22/08/2021
Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden held off Pato O’Ward to win a gruelling Gateway IndyCar race but O’Ward still snatched away Álex Palou’s championship lead, while Romain Grosjean’s rollercoaster oval debut ended with 14th.
With five cautions inside the first 70 laps, restarts had proved tricky, and this caused chaos for two of the top three in the championship standings. Heading into Turn 1 on lap 66 of 260, Rinus VeeKay clipped Palou from behind and he in turn went into Scott Dixon, with Palou and VeeKay out of the race - although Ganassi managed to get Dixon’s car out for a few laps. With Palou - and Dixon, who entered third in the points - out of the race it gave a number of drivers the big opportunity needed to chase down Palou’s lead.
One of those drivers was Newgarden. He’d started fourth but leapt into the lead on the first round of pitstops after Colton Herta had led initially from polesitter Will Power. Once in the lead, Newgarden’s deficit to Palou fell from 55 points before the race to 13 at that point, giving him extra incentive to hold on. Newgarden led until the second round of stops after which Herta took over the lead with O’Ward and Takuma Sato passing Alexander Rossi, who appeared to be heavily fuel saving as he gave up second place for fifth. However, that hard work by Herta and the effort to win his first oval race fell apart when he pitted on lap 185 with a broken driveshaft.
He would have cut his massive championship deficit to just over 60 had he held on to win. That handed the net lead back to Newgarden heading into the last stops with 60 laps to go, but on his out-lap Rossi went into Turn 1 too high and crashed into the outside wall with 58 laps remaining, costing him a likely podium. Newgarden resumed the lead and had to keep a rapid O’Ward behind, but never looked in doubt for his third win in the last six races at the venue. Arrow McLaren SP’s O’Ward now takes the championship lead over Palou while Newgarden has reduced a massive deficit from 55 to 22 with three races remaining.
Power rebounded after falling back in the second round of stops to round out the podium ahead of Penske team-mate Scott McLaughlin, who adds a fourth to his second at Texas earlier in the year. Sebastien Bourdais and Sato came from outside of the top 10 in a busy day to take fifth and sixth respectively, while an undercut strategy had Ryan Hunter-Reay higher earlier in the race but he had to settle for seventh. Simon Pagenaud brought out one of the early cautions after team-mate Newgarden turned down into him at Turn 1 early on, but despite making three more pitstops than his rivals he made the most of the attrition to finish eighth. Marcus Ericsson was the best Chip Ganassi Racing finisher again, as he took ninth ahead of Meyer Shank Racing’s Jack Harvey.
Grosjean and his #51 Dale Coyne Racing car came alive in the second stint, as he looked to rebound from an unsafe release penalty in the pits. He struggled to settle in early on but after passing oval legend Tony Kanaan on lap 84 of 260, he passed another three cars in nine laps including some very experienced oval racers, to run ninth. He pitted before most of the leading group but went high into Turn 3 on his out-lap, which caused his tyres to pick up debris and he struggled to keep the car out of the wall for the next lap and a half while he warmed his tyres. Then Grosjean lost a lap during the last round of pitstops because he pitted before a caution. He was running a top five pace and running with those cars on track despite being a lap down, capping off a mixed but very impressive oval debut. Without that pre-caution stop he would likely have finished in the top 10. Nine cars failed to finish the race while James Hinchcliffe finished 17 laps down after a suspected electrical issue discovered on the formation laps.
2021 Bommarito Automotive Group 500 Classification (USA unless stated)(260 Laps)
1st. Josef Newgarden
2nd. Patricio O'Ward (MEX)
3rd. Will Power (AUS)
4th. Scott McLaughlin (NZ)
5th. Sébastian Bourdais (SUI)
6th. Takuma Sato (JPN)
7th. Ryan Hunter-Reay
8th. Simon Pagenaud (FRA)
9th. Marcus Ericsson (SWE)
10th. Jack Harvey (GBR)
11th. Conor Daly
12th. Dalton Kellett (CAN)
13th. Tony Kanaan (BRA)
14th. Romain Grosjean (FRA)
DNF: James Hinchcliffe (CAN)
DNF: Felix Rosenqvist (SWE)
DNF: Alexander Rossi
DNF: Colton Herta
DNF: Scott Dixon (NZ)
DNF: Álex Palou (ESP)
DNF: Rinus Veekay (NED)
DNF: Ed Carpenter
DNF: Graham Rahal
DNF: Ed Jones (UAE)
