With his record fifth victory at Iowa Speedway, Josef Newgarden chopped 28 points off Alex Palou’s NTT IndyCar Series championship lead with six races remaining this season.
“That’s a great chunk,” Newgarden said. “There’s no doubt we have to win a lot of races, and Alex has to inevitably at some point hit bad luck. It’s just the way this whole thing goes. If that doesn’t happen, then we’re still going to focus on winning races, and hopefully we have a lot of wins on the year and we get close. Or maybe just winning a bunch of races and he doesn’t need the bad luck, and that’s enough to get us the championship.
“They’re all going to be critical. We can’t afford a bad weekend anymore. He can, but we’ve got to be pretty much perfect.”
Newgarden, who moved into second place in the standings ahead of Scott Dixon, now trails Palou by 98 points.
“Alex has had a great run,” Newgarden said. “He’s really had no bad races. It’s a tough deficit that we’re in. I can’t control what happens with Alex. I think the odds are higher that he has some bad luck at some point, but that doesn’t mean it’s ever going to come. It just may be a great year for those guys where they don’t ever truly see it, and that’s OK.”
Here are the IndyCar results and points standings Saturday after the Hy-Vee Homefront 250:
RESULTS
Click here for the box score from the 250-lap race on the 0.894-mile oval in Newton, Iowa. Click here for the official race posting.
Lap leader summary
Full lap chart
Best section times
Full section data
Pit stop summary
Event summary
Here is the finishing order in the Hy-Vee Homefront 250 with starting position in parentheses, driver, engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):
1. (3) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 250, Running
2. (2) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 250, Running
3. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 250, Running
4. (10) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 250, Running
5. (1) Will Power, Chevrolet, 250, Running
6. (4) Scott Dixon, Honda, 249, Running
7. (17) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 249, Running
8. (7) Alex Palou, Honda, 249, Running
9. (11) Takuma Sato, Honda, 249, Running
10. (20) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 249, Running
11. (8) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 249, Running
12. (9) David Malukas, Honda, 248, Running
13. (21) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 248, Running
14. (14) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 248, Running
15. (23) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 247, Running
16. (24) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 247, Running
17. (15) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 247, Running
18. (26) Jack Harvey, Honda, 247, Running
19. (6) Colton Herta, Honda, 246, Running
20. (19) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 246, Running
21. (22) Conor Daly, Honda, 245, Running
22. (12) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 245, Running
23. (16) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevrolet, 244, Running
24. (18) Ed Carpenter, Chevrolet, 243, Running
25. (27) Sting Ray Robb, Honda, 242, Running
26. (25) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 241, Running
27. (28) Benjamin Pedersen, Chevrolet, 235, Running
28. (13) Graham Rahal, Honda, 149, Contact
Winners average speed: 143.155; Time of Race: 1 hour, 33 minutes, 40.4758 seconds; Margin of victory: 3.3755 seconds; Cautions: One for 14 laps; Lead changes: Five among four drivers; Lap Leaders: Power 1-62; Palou 63; Power 64-120; Newgarden 121-125; Sato 126; Newgarden 127-250.
POINTS
Click here for the points tally in Saturday’s race.
Here are the points standings after the 11th race of the season for:
Drivers
Engine manufacturers
Entrants
Pit stop performance
Top 10 in points: Palou 442, Newgarden 344, Dixon 328, O’Ward 309, Ericsson 307, McLaughlin 298, Power 274, Lundgaard 258, Rossi 250, Herta 250.
Rest of the standings: Kirkwood 218, Rosenqvist 200, Grosjean 194, Rahal 172, VeeKay 171, Ilott 169, Armstrong 156, Malukas 152, Ferrucci 143, Castroneves 129, Canapino 127, DeFrancesco 119, Harvey 113, Daly 107, Pagenaud 88, Robb 87, Pedersen 85, Sato 60, Hunter-Reay 56, Carpenter 33, Kanaan 18, Andretti 13, Blomqvist 5, Enerson 5, Legge 5.
NEXT: The NTT IndyCar Series will race July 23 at Iowa Speedway. The race will be broadcast at 2 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock.
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