Alex Palou won a wild Farm To Fresh 275 at Iowa Speedway as the racing gods favored the Spaniard, punished Team Penske, and turned the table on Chevy’s 1-2-3-4 from Saturday with a Honda 1-2-3 on Sunday.
It was Palou’s seventh victory of the year in the No. 10 Honda, his second on an oval following his breakthrough at the Indianapolis 500, and gave Chip Ganassi Racing a 1-2 finish with teammate Scott Dixon coming home 0.5s behind in the No. 9 Honda. Ganassi technical affiliate Meyer Shank Racing was third as Marcus Armstrong produced his career best on an oval, 2.7s back in the No. 66 Honda.
“Speechless, honestly,” Palou said. “Speechless. I cannot believe it. I struggled on short ovals for so long. Seven wins in one year. It’s insane.”
Palou joined two-time champion Al Unser Jr., the last to achieve the feat in 1994, with seven wins from the first 12 races, and behind the podium David Malukas was the lead Bowtie driver in fourth with the No. 4 AJ Foyt Racing Chevy. Saturday’s winner Pato O’Ward was fifth in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevy and teammate Christian Lundgaard completed the top six in the No. 7 Chevy.
The Spaniard drove away from pole and led the 275-lap race until the 65th lap when Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden fired by and repeated his form from 24 hours before. As the driver to beat, Newgarden was in command until he pitted on lap 129 when Andretti Global’s Marcus Armstrong had a tire failure and crashed seconds after Newgarden reached pit lane.
He’d restart from last among the drivers on the lead lap and tear through the top 10 to retake the lead from Palou and, like clockwork, he made his last pit stop on lap 249, went a lap down and fell to ninth, and Andretti’s Colton Herta suffered a tire failure on lap 254, hit the wall, and triggered another caution that buried Newgarden, who’d go on to finish 10th.
Stretching their fuel tanks at the time, Palou, Dixon and Armstrong didn’t follow the leading Chevys into the pits and were rewarded. Once pit lane opened under caution, the three snuck in, took fuel and tires, and were soon spraying champagne in Iowa. Between Newgarden’s surges, Palou led 194 laps, which paints an interesting picture of how competitive the No. 10 Honda ran on Sunday, but yet again, fate, bad luck or some other cosmic force intervened when Newgarden was the class of the field.
As well, Penske’s misery wasn’t reserved for the two-time Indy 500 winner, as Scott McLaughlin was crashed out while trying to avoid the spinning Devlin DeFrancesco and Will Power suffered another engine problem – his second in seven days – that forced his retirement.
Outside the top six, other strong performances came from Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen who went wheel-to-wheel with teammate Alexander Rossi and earned eighth. PREMA Racing’s Robert Shwartzman was fast throughout, was dealt a penalty for speeding on pit lane and benefited from the cautions to recover to ninth, and Dale Coyne Racing’s Jacob Abel, who held on and ran a clean race, recorded the best finish of his rookie season with 11th, one spot ahead of veteran teammate Rinus VeeKay.
There are a lot of crashed cars to repair and new liveries to apply in a short amount of time as the series continues its five-races-in-four-weekends tour at Toronto on Friday.
It’s five races left to go in the season and Palou has a lead of 129 points on O’Ward. The maximum points haul for any race is 54 points, meaning the Ganassi driver could take Toronto and the following weekend’s race at Monterey off, return at Portland, and still hold the championship lead. Unless he decides to retire tomorrow, there’s almost no scenario where Palou fails to become a four-time IndyCar Series champion.
As it happened
The Farm To Fresh 275 goes green with Alex Palou in the lead and like Saturday’s race, the opening lap comes with a caution as Devlin DeFrancesco spins on his own and takes a luckless Scott McLaughlin with him. Both cars are in the wall and done for the day.
Lap 12 and Palou sprints away with Rosenqvist and Newgarden and Malukas and Power and Daly in tow.
Lap 18 and Power takes P4 from Malukas.
Lap 20 and Newgarden takes P2 from Rosenqvist.
Lap 21 and Power is slowing.
Lap 22 and Power pits and sits. “Same as Mid-Ohio,” he said. “Some kind of engine failure. Felt like we would have had a great race. Pity. We giving them away. Not much we can do.”
Lap 32 and Palou has 0.8s on Newgarden.
Lap 48 and Palou leads Newgarden by 0.4s as they work through backmarkers. Malukas is 1.4s back in third, Rosenqvist is 5.9s down.
Lap 50 and it’s Palou, Newgarden, Malukas, Rosenqvist, Palou who just passed Daly, and caution for a crashed Sting Ray Robb. “Man, that happened so fast,” he says. Big hit.
Lap 52 and the field pits. Quick stop by Palou and Malukas nearly beats Newgarden out.
Lap 60 and when the race restarts, it’s Palou, Newgarden, Malukas, O’Ward, Rosenqvist, Armstrong, Dixon, Daly, Rossi and Shwartzman as the top 10.
Lap 65 and it’s green. Newgarden takes the lead into Turn 3. Dixon takes P6 from Armstrong. Shwartzman gets a drive-through for speeding on pit lane.
Lap 70 and Daly takes P6 from Dixon.
Lap 80 and Newgarden has 0.5s on Palou and 1.0s on Malukas.
Lap 100 and Newgarden has 1.2s on Palou and 1.7s on Malukas. O’Ward is 3.5s behind in fourth, Rosenqvist is 4.0s back, and Daly is a half-lap shy at 8.8s arrears.
Lap 113 and Newgarden has lapped through Ferrucci in P16 so far.
Lap 119 and Palou is fighting understeer and an insistent Malukas trying to take P2.
Lap 121 the sliding and fight with Malukas has given Newgarden a 3.4s advantage over Palou.
Lap 130 and Newgarden pits. Caution as Ericsson crashes while Newgarden was receiving service. Brutal luck for the runaway leader. Apparent inner sidewall failure on Ericsson’s right-front tire.
Lap 134 and the field pits.
Lap 142 and Palou leads the restart ahead of Malukas and O’Ward.
Lap 145 and Newgarden’s up to P11.
Lap 153 and it’s P10 for Newgarden.
Lap 157 and Palou leads Malukas by 1.3s, O’Ward by 2.7s, Daly by 3.6s, Rosenqvist by 3.8s, and Armstrong by 4.6s.
Lap 162 and it’s an ECR squabble between Rasmussen and Rossi. Oof.
Lap 177 and it’s a caution for the second crash in two days by Ilott.
Lap 183 and the field pits.
Lap 185 and it’s Kirkwood, who stayed out, Palou, Malukas, Daly, O’Ward, Armstrong, Dixon, Newgarden, Rasmussen and Herta as the top 10.
Lap 191 restart.
Lap 193 and Palou takes the lead from Kirkwood as Malukas follows.
Lap 196 and Newgarden is up to P6.
Lap 200 and Palou holds 0.3s over Malukas, 1.7s on Daly, 2.6s on Kirkwood, 3.1s on O’Ward, and 3.9s on Newgarden.
Lap 218 Newgarden is up to P4 and chasing Daly in P3.
Lap 219 and Palou is dealing with intermittent understeer. He slows on exit of Turn 2 on a regular basis and has Malukas close the gap. Newgarden to P3.
Lap 222 and Palou leads Malukas by 1.1s and Newgarden by 5.3s.Lap 230 and Newgarden is flying, down 3.7s to Palou.
Lap 234 and Palou only has 0.8s on Palou as traffic thickens.
Lap 237 and Newgarden takes P2 from Malukas. Palou is getting killed by Rosenqvist who refuses to go a lap down.
Lap 240 and Newgarden takes the lead and Malukas goes through to P2 as Palou drops to P3.
