For just the third time in 18 doubleheader weekend’s, someone swept both races and celebrated in victory lane on both days. Josef Newgarden dominated this weekend’s Hy-Vee Iowa doubleheader in route to a clean sweep of both 250 lap races. As a result, the 32-year-old driver chopped 46 points off Alex Palou’s lead and now will make matters interesting with five races left moving forward.

He entered the weekend 126 points behind Alex Palou, left Saturday 98 points back and will now head to Nashville in a couple of weeks 80 points arrears.

“I don’t know about you, but that’s a positive result I think leaving the weekend,” he said.

“I would have liked it to reach 50 or 60. That sound better, but that’s not where we’re at, and I think we did a pretty good job given what was in our control this weekend.”

“He is a tremendous competitor. Did a great job. I wish we gained more, but I’m not going to be dissatisfied with where we brought it to.”

Newgarden outlasted the field in a three-lap shootout en route to his 29th career NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory tying Rick Mears for 13th all-time.

“By no means easy. I think today was different,” said Newgarden. “As we spoke about yesterday, I felt like today was going to have a different twist, and it did.

“I think that’s why you saw the order slightly jumbled in the top ten. Just balance-wise with a hotter track you were getting different reactions from the car, and we needed to keep up with it.

“I think the good thing is and the fortunate thing for us is that we have a really good baseline race car here. You know, it’s impossible to win around this place without a great car, and we always have it at this track. At least in recent memory we’ve always had it.

“Yeah, it was great day. I feel really happy today. Yesterday felt incomplete. That’s the only way I can put it. When you have a double-header and you feel like you have a great car underneath you, finishing day one it just doesn’t feel finished. Today I feel like we’re done now. We can leave.

“I’m much happier today, and really proud of the team. Excited for them. They deserve it. They put in a lot of work, and they deserve the results this weekend.”

It looked like Newgarden was going to easily cruise to his 5th Iowa win in the last 7 tries as his lead had grown over second place Felix Rosenqvist by over 5 seconds. However, Ryan Hunter-Reay slapped the Turn 4 wall with 10 laps remaining bringing out the third and final caution of the day.

With only five cars on the lead lap, it could have been an interesting strategy predicament. However, race control took strategy out of their hands in never opening up the pits for fresh tires. The lapped cars were moved to the back to set up a three lap, five-car dash for the win for Sunday’s Hy-Vee One Step 250.

Newgarden never flinched.

Rosenqvist slipped from second to fourth on the restart while Newgarden’s Team Penske teammate Will Power jumped up to second to finish .7050-seconds behind.

Points leader Alex Palou went from 5th to 3rd in the final three laps to log his 7th podium of the season and 5 of the last six races.

“I told him he wasn’t supposed to finish there,” Newgarden said of Palou. “I mean, it’s hard not to give kudos to Alex. I think he just did a great job. Clearly we seem to have the upper hand this weekend, and he had a great day today. You know, he maximized what he could, and I think that speaks to what he brings to his program. He maximizes his results. He minimized a loss today. You know, it could have be more, and he just made sure it wasn’t.”

Rosenqvist was fourth in his No. 6 Dallara-Chevrolet after saying Power pushed him up in the marbles on the final restart while Scott McLaughlin rounded out the top five in a thrilling race.

Newgarden started 7th and felt like he’d have a tougher time on Sunday than he did on Saturday. However, those fears were short lived.

He was already into the top five on Lap 2. On Lap 23 he was up to fourth. 3 laps later, he was third. On Lap 31, he passed both teammates to take over the lead. He’d lead all but 8 laps the rest of the way outlasting the field in easy fashion.

“I would say I just felt heightened,” said Newgarden. “Similar to when you haven’t run a race on a normal weekend, you know, you are just heightened the night before.

“I’m just focused. I’m focused on what’s going to be different. I watched probably four hours of video last night just figuring out what can be a little bit better, including the whole broadcast.

“I just felt kind of on the chip just ready to go, like it’s just not done. It’s half of what the available points are, and so I felt really charged and ready to rock again.

“But I wouldn’t say that’s different to a normal weekend. That’s how you feel leading up to a Sunday. So you get through Saturday, and you think, oh, what a great achievement, and it was, but it’s just not done yet. You can reverse everything the next day.

“Now I feel good about it. We’re not reversing anything. We did the job, and now we can leave.”

Newgarden Untouchable On Ovals

Josef Newgarden feels the pressure when he comes to the Iowa Speedway. That’s a given as he inherited that pressure by being bar-none the best oval driver in the series right now.

“There’s a pressure that’s on us, I know when we show up here,” said Newgarden. “It’s that assumption. It’s the assumption that we’re going to be great just because we should be. We’re the 2 car. We should be really good here.

“That’s okay because I think there’s always a pressure that exists. You show up to Indianapolis with Team Penske, and there’s only — there’s only one place that people accept as okay for Team Penske, and that’s winning the race. We deal with those pressures. It’s not like it’s something new.”

With coming into the weekend needing at least 1 win, he delivered in a sweep.

Newgarden is THE short oval king. He’s won 6 races here, 4-for-7 at World Wide Technology Raceway and also has a 2018 win at Phoenix as well. That’s 11 of his 29 wins (37.9%) on short ovals.

In fact, each of his last 6 race wins have come on ovals as has 8 of his last 10 wins (80%) in general. 14 of his 29 wins (48.2%) were on ovals.

Newgarden’s led 111 or more laps in 9 of his last 11 Iowa starts including six wins, a pair of runner-ups, a fourth, fifth and sixth place result in the last 12 tries.

 “I don’t really feel differently about it than any other track, to be honest,” said Newgarden. “My goal is to be strong everywhere. It doesn’t matter the discipline or the track type. I want to be good everywhere we show up. If there’s a place we’re not good, it’s number one on my list to figure out. Why aren’t we good here? Why can’t we win this race?

“Anything is possible for us and our team, and we need to approach it that way. So just in short, it doesn’t feel different to me, whether it’s Iowa or it’s Toronto or it’s Detroit or Road America. They all matter. You take great pride in being able to work with the team and put a victory together. They’re all difficult.

“It’s not easy to win a race in this series, so they all feel the same.”

He led 341 of 500 laps (68.2%) this weekend.

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Power Makes Nice Comeback To Runner-Up Finish

Will Power was prophetic entering this weekend. He said on Wednesday that he’d have at least one win at Iowa so long as his teammate Josef Newgarden wasn’t in the field.

“Heading back to Iowa. Yeah, yeah, yeah, one of my favorite tracks. Been trying to win there for years. There’s one guy that seems to prevent it. Yeah, it’s going to be fun,” said Power this past Wednesday.

For a second straight year, Power swept both poles around the .894-mile track. Also for a second straight year, he leaves without a race win to show for it.

On a day that he became just the 7th driver ever to lead 5,000 or more laps, he had to settle for second…again.

In fact, Power is now 0-for-17 here with 8 of those 17 starts coming from the pole. When your teammate is as good as Newgarden is, there’s just not much more Power can do.

This was his fourth Iowa runner-up finish. 3 of those 4 were won by Newgarden (2016, 2020 Race 2, 2023 Race 2). The other was Pato O’Ward in this second race a year ago too.

Yes, that’s a runner-up finish for Power in each of the last three doubleheader finales here.

“Yeah, good weekend. Two poles, second. I feel like I had the car to really challenge at the end there,” said Power.

“We’re lucky to get the yellow. Probably should have pitted a couple of laps earlier. It probably would have put us in contention. Struggled the first two massively. Like, massively. Massively loose.

“Yeah, once we fixed that, we were really strong again. That was really good. Yeah, good day, good day.”

Power led the first 30 laps but in the first two stints, his car trailed off over the course of the run. So bad, he’d fall outside the top 5 each time. They made adjustments each stop to get it back in the window for a fight at the win in the end.

“I felt like we actually finally had it once we made those adjustments to run with him,” Power continued.

“We came into pits with him, but I had to wait for X and to pit. It was just bad timing on our part to not pit a couple of laps early.

“Obviously risks with that, but not much. Here you have a two-lap window to make a yellow.

“Just ovals in general, he has won every single oval that he has finished in a long time now, yeah.”

Power is starting to find momentum again with 4 top 5 finishes over the last 6 races including 3 of which on the podium. If not for running out of gas on the last lap last weekend in Toronto, that would be 5-for-6 instead.

Power’s last five Iowa finishes are second, third, second, fifth and second respectively. He also has 8 top sixes in his last 10 Iowa starts overall. On another short oval in Gateway, Power finished 3rd and 6th in his last 2 starts.

The thing now is, can he find a win over the next 5 races to keep a streak going?

Power has a win every season since 2007 (16 straight years). Through 12 races run, he’s winless. However, there’s some good opportunites coming up.

“Yeah, very good tracks coming up for us,” Power told me. “Series is ultra-competitive, so I really don’t see — I don’t see many weak teams out of the big four teams: Penske, McLaren, Andretti, and Ganassi. That’s just not — you might start to add Rahal into that now. Lundgaard is starting to be more of a regular top five finisher.

“Yeah, pretty tough field, toughest in the world actually. That’s why, if you can win one, it’s such a big deal. It’s a big deal now to win in INDYCAR.”

While he has no top 10 finishes in 2 tries at Nashville, he has won 2 of the last 3 return trips to the Indy road course. He was 3rd last year. Then it’s to World Wide Technology Raceway for which he’s very quick on. Then it’s to Portland and Monterey to where he can compete too.

He has two top two finishes including a win in 2019 at Portland in his last three tries there while also being 2nd, 26th and 3rd in his three Laguna Seca tries.

Power is hoping not to make history in another way by defending his championship season by going winless.

Alex Palou went winless for the first 16 races a year ago before winning the season finale. The last time someone went that long was Scott Dixon going 14 races in 2014. Dixon went winless in 2004.

Sam Hornish Jr. was winless in 11 races in 2003.

Can Power avoid their company?

Champions And How Long It Took To Win The Next Season

2022 – Alex Palou 16 races – won the 17th and final race

2021 – Scott Dixon – won the 3rd race at Texas

2020 – Josef Newgarden – won the 6th race at Iowa

2019 – Scott Dixon – won the 8th race in Belle Isle

2018 – Josef Newgarden won the 4th race at Barber

2017 – Simon Pagenaud – won the 4th race at Phoenix

2016 – Scott Dixon – won the 2nd race at Phoenix

2015 – Will Power – won the 5th race in the Indy Grand Prix

2014 – Scott Dixon – won the 15th race at Mid-Ohio

2013- Ryan Hunter-Reay – won the 2nd race at Barber

2012 – Dario Franchitti – won the 5th race in the Indy 500

2011 – Dario Franchitti – won the season opener at St. Pete

2010 – Dario Franchitti – won the 6th race in the Indy 500

2009 – Scott Dixon – won the 3rd race at Kansas

2008 – Dario Franchitti – went to NASCAR

2007 – Sam Hornish Jr. – won the 7th race at Texas

2006 – Dan Wheldon – won the season opener at Homestead

2005 – Tony Kanaan – won the 8th race at Kansas

2004 – Scott Dixon – winless

2003 – Sam Hornish Jr. – won the 12th race at Kentucky

2002 – Sam Hornish Jr. – won the season opener at Homestead

2001 – Buddy Lazier – won the 6th race at Pikes Peak

2000 – Greg Ray – won the 7th race at Phoenix

1999 – Kenny Brack – won the 4th race in the Indy 500

1998 – Tony Stewart – won the season opener in Disney

1997 – Scott Sharp – won the season opener in Loudon

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Championship Winning Weekend For Alex Palou

Alex Palou came into this weekend’s Iowa doubleheader just hoping to keep his points lead at a reasonable base. He was 117 points clear of Scott Dixon coming into Iowa and 126 ahead of Josef Newgarden.

After two races, just one driver gained on him – Newgarden.

The gap from first to second is 80 for which it may say Palou lost 37 points on second and even more on Newgarden, he’ll consider this a massive win.

54 is max points in a race. Palou can skip Nashville and still have at least a 26 point lead over the final 4 events.

That’s why this was a massive weekend for him to keep a 1 race gap on the field. He started 8th and finished 7th, one lap down on Saturday and despite rolling off 12th on Sunday, he gained nine spots to finish third.

It was an impressive display that was a championship winning drive aided by two cautions. If the first one doesn’t fly, it’s hard telling to where he’d end up. If the second one doesn’t fly, he doesn’t end up on the podium either.

“Yeah, we knew it was going to be a tough weekend,” said Palou. “We thought it was going to be maybe a little bit less tough after we tested here, but honestly yesterday we had a lot of pace. Not like Penske pace, but like second series pace, and that was great.

“We just didn’t really have that final lap that you need to finish fourth, fifth, and we finished eighth.

“Yeah, today was the opposite. Today we had no pace. I was struggling to overtake. I was struggling to keep the tires under the deck, and the team just put me in the position that we are now. So, yeah, it was all up to the team today.”

Palou was passed by Newgarden on Lap 58 to put him a lap down early. He’d battle back to get his lap back only to be put back down a lap 20 laps later. He was 12th at the time. Then came the caution on Lap 86 for Agustin Canapino getting out of the racing line in Turn 2. Palou was among a handful of cars to take the wave around and get his lap back.

It didn’t do much still as he rode in that stint mostly in 13th. He’d pit on Lap 145 for the third time of the race. Luckily, he gained 5 spots on that pit sequence to be scored in 8th afterwards.

That’s about where he was going to finish before another caution coming out on Lap 158 for Sting Ray Robb’s tire. Palou was one of five drivers to gamble to pit for new tires again. He’d restart 12th.

However, he’d quickly gain back up to 8th, then 7th, then…6th. He was coming. He pit for the final time on Lap 196. He was knocking on the door of a top five. He’d get into fifth. Then came the final caution with 10 to go.

Palou went from 5th to 3rd on the restart to score his 7th podium of the season and 22nd of his career. It continues his dominance as he’s not finished worse than 8th in his last 13 races. He’s finished 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 3rd since the Month of May.

 “Yeah, that was cool,” Palou said on the final restart. “I knew that we were the last car on the lead lap, so I could risk it a little bit more. If I had an issue with something, I was not going to lose a position.

“So went on the outside. Had a good restart. Went on the outside of McLaughlin, and I think Rosenqvist was battling with Power and just to the narrow, and I got to the inside of him into three. So, yeah, it was a pretty good restart.”

Good luck catching him now. Even on days that he’s qualified 15th, 7th, 12th in the last 3 races, he’s finished on the podium in 2 of the 3 tries.

“Yeah, I’m looking forward,” said Palou. “As I said, it was a place and a weekend that I was not looking forward to even before starting the season because it’s a place I struggle personally to place.

“As a team we know we need to find a little bit more, which we did. Yeah, I was still struggling a lot.

“Super happy with the podium today and with the P8 yesterday. I’m looking forward to the next couple of races, which we know that we have a good car, and I have a lot of confidence that I can extract kind of the same from what we have.”

Next up is Nashville to where he finished 3rd at last season. On street courses in 2023, he’s finished 8th (St. Pete), 5th (Long Beach), 1st (Detroit) and 2nd (Toronto). Then it’s back to Indy on the road course to where he won by nearly 20 seconds the last time out.

2 of the final 3 races are in Portland and Laguna Seca to where he won Portland in 2021 and won Laguna Seca by a half-minute last season.

So even if World Wide Technology Raceway is a rough weekend, he has enough of an advantage to overcome it too.

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McLaughlin Goes Off Strategy, Doesn’t Work

Scott McLaughlin knows all of Josef Newgarden’s tricks. That’s why he had to do something different still under the Lap 158 caution. McLaughlin had the second-best car as he ran in that spot for much of Sunday’s race.

After being P2 in practice on Friday, qualifying P2 for both races and finishing P2 on Saturday, why not try something new? Beating Newgarden on pure pace? Didn’t look favorable.

So, despite being second under that caution and just pitting 16 laps prior, McLaughlin was one of five cars to hit pit road. Why not? Why not see if fresh tires could help?

“Yeah, we’re at the point now where we you can risk a lot, whether that’s strategy and whatnot,” said McLaughlin.” Ultimately you don’t want to fall any further down in the championship standings.

“I think we’ve got to put pressure on Alex. We have to make sure he doesn’t get too far ahead. We know how crazy of a race Nashville is. Laguna is new because of the new pavement. I generally think it’s not over. We’re full steam ahead, just pushing.

“At the end of the day we have to put pressure on Alex as well. That comes from our team and how we work.”

He’d restart 10th and it didn’t take much to get him back up to the top five. He’d even get back up to fourth, but it didn’t pan out by time the final pit window opened. His car wasn’t handling well and he’d have to pit with the leaders still.

He’d never get back up to second as he’d finish fifth in the end.

McLaughlin now has 14 top 5 finishes in his 46 Indy Car starts so far and among his 14 top 5 finishes in the sport, 7 of which came on ovals. He was second in Texas 1 in 2021 and fourth in Gateway that season. Last year, he was second at Texas, third in Iowa 2 and third again in Gateway. This year, he was sixth at Texas and now runner-up and fifth at Iowa.

He’s also heating up on the season too.

McLaughlin has six straight top eight finishes now and seven in the last nine races. The only exception was the Month of May to where he qualified 16th and 14th in the GMR Grand Prix and Indy 500 and finished in the same spots too.

Since, he’s qualified 2nd in 4 of the 6 races with finishes of 7th, 8th, 5th, 6th, 2nd, 5th. It’s just turning those starts to a win.

He was held up in Detroit with Romain Grosjean, he should have pit at the end of last Sunday’s race in Toronto, didn’t have enough for Newgarden on Saturday and then swung for the fence on Sunday and it didn’t pan out.

It’s been that type of season but he still moves up to 5th in points (-148). He’s one point behind Marcus Ericsson for fourth and only 28 back from Scott Dixon for third.

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McLaren Seemed A Step Off

We all wondered if McLaren had anything for the Penske’s this weekend. Pato O’Ward had been stout on ovals but this weekend, he just didn’t have it.

While he qualified 5th and finished 3rd on Saturday, he was never a factor on Sunday coming home 10th.

“Solid podium for us today,” he said on Saturday. “Just didn’t have anything for the Penskes. We need to take a solid step forward if we want to make them sweat tomorrow.

“I just think they were specifically strong getting through traffic. I would just — I’d get stuck. I wasn’t able to place the car where I needed to in order to get by some slow cars.

“Obviously happy with it, but considering how much pace we had last year, it’s like where is it?”

They had an idea on where to go overnight.

“I have a very clear picture of what we need,” said O’Ward. “We’ve just got to get creative and see how we’re going to find that. Obviously we put our best foot forward coming into qualifying for the race, knowing what we’ve had here in the past, and we think this is going to be working for us.

“But we need to take another step if we want to challenge for the win tomorrow.”

They made some changes but it went in the wrong direction. While he rose early in going from 11th to 7th on Lap 1 and up to sixth by Lap 5, he was fifth on Lap 33. 3 laps later, he passed Will Power for 4th. 2 laps later (Lap 38) he passed David Malukas for 3rd. He’d pit on Lap 58 but that was the end of his race winning chances.

He faded from there and even pit early on his third stint on Lap 143. He even pit on Lap 163 with four other to swing for the fence but he got mired midpack and never made it up. While a 10th is nice for his 5th straight, it’s not where he should have been.

O’Ward has been great on ovals with him having 13 top six finishes in his last 16 oval starts. In fact, 10 of his 18 career podiums have come on ovals. 3 of those 10 have occurred right here on this .894-mile track.

He’s finished 4th, 12th, 2nd, 1st, 3rd and now 10th here. At a like track in World Wide Technology Raceway, he’s fared even better with finishes of 3rd, 2nd, 2nd and 4th.

Among O’Ward’s 4 career wins, 3 have come in the second leg of a doubleheader weekend. He won the second race at Texas in 2021, the second race at Detroit also in 2021 and the second race here last year.

He just couldn’t do it on Sunday.

How much of that was due to not testing here?

Alexander Rossi qualified 20-18 and finished 10th, 15th. He wasn’t on the lead lap on any day. Felix Rosenqvist started 21st and finished 13th on Saturday but came from 16th to finish 4th on Sunday as the highlight of the weekend.

While they had 3rd on Saturday and 4th on Sunday, you just get the sense if they had tested here maybe they’d have more data to give Penske a run for it.

NEWTON, Iowa – Results Sunday of the Hy-Vee One Step 250 presented by Gatorade NTT INDYCAR SERIES event on the 0.894 mile Iowa Speedway, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):

1. (7) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 250, Running
2. (1) Will Power, Chevrolet, 250, Running
3. (12) Alex Palou, Honda, 250, Running
4. (16) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 250, Running
5. (2) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 250, Running
6. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 249, Running
7. (5) Colton Herta, Honda, 249, Running
8. (3) David Malukas, Honda, 249, Running
9. (10) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 249, Running
10. (11) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 249, Running
11. (17) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 249, Running
12. (20) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 249, Running
13. (21) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 249, Running
14. (24) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 248, Running
15. (18) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 248, Running
16. (8) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 248, Running
17. (15) Conor Daly, Honda, 248, Running
18. (14) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 248, Running
19. (22) Jack Harvey, Honda, 247, Running
20. (6) Graham Rahal, Honda, 247, Running
21. (19) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 246, Running
22. (27) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 245, Running
23. (4) Ed Carpenter, Chevrolet, 244, Running
24. (25) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevrolet, 237, Contact
25. (13) Takuma Sato, Honda, 237, Running
26. (23) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 236, Running
27. (28) Benjamin Pedersen, Chevrolet, 193, DQ
28. (26) Sting Ray Robb, Honda, 152, DQ

Race Statistics
Winner’s average speed: 133.527
Time of race: 01:40:25.7356
Margin of victory: 0.7050
Cautions: 3 for 37 laps
Lead changes: 8 among 6 drivers

Lap Leaders:
Power, Will 1 – 30
Newgarden, Josef 31 – 55
Rosenqvist, Felix 56 – 57
Newgarden, Josef 58 – 147
Dixon, Scott 148
Ericsson, Marcus 149 – 151
Newgarden, Josef 152 – 195
McLaughlin, Scott 196 – 197
Newgarden, Josef 198 – 250

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings:
Palou 477, Newgarden 397, Dixon 357, Ericsson 330, O’Ward 329, McLaughlin 329, Power 316, Herta 276, Lundgaard 275, Rossi 265, Kirkwood 237, Rosenqvist 233, Grosjean 212, Ilott 185, VeeKay 183, Rahal 182, Malukas 176, Armstrong 156, Ferrucci 151, Castroneves 143, Canapino 132, DeFrancesco 128, Harvey 124, Daly 120, Robb 92, Pedersen 90, Pagenaud 88, Sato 65, Hunter-Reay 62, Carpenter 40, Kanaan 18, Andretti 13, Blomqvist 5, Enerson 5, Legge 5