The Iowa 300 may have started late Saturday night, but the race didn’t end until early Sunday morning, and when the checkered flag finally flew, Josef Newgarden had easily claimed the victory.
Newgarden absolutely dominated the 300-lap event, which was delayed for several hours due to strong rains earlier in the evening, by leading 245 laps en route to his fourth victory of the season. The win is also Newgarden’s second career victory at the 0.894-mile bullring.
“This is great to be back in victory lane,” Newgarden told NBC Sports. “Chevy brought it tonight. They had all the horsepower in the world.
“This is a team effort. All three cars were fast tonight, and that’s what it takes. You got to have all three of us pushing each other. I was a little down yesterday. I felt like we had the pole car, and we just didn’t get it right. Today we got it right. I was so focused last night to make sure we got today right.”
With his victory, Newgarden was also able to extend his lead in the points standings over Alexander Rossi. Newgarden now leads Rossi by 29 points.
Scott Dixon finished the race in the second position the fifth time this season, but the podium finish might as well have been a win to Dixon, as the Kiwi driver was a lap down in 16th place earlier in the race.
“Holy smokes! Second? I thought I would have been 22nd,” Dixon said. “Huge credit to the team. They definitely pulled one out there. We stayed [out] long on that long run there before that last stop, caught the yellow and it kind of put us in the prime position.
“A ton of people [were] on used tires. We got new tires and we were able to march to the front. We couldn’t quite get to Josef, but man, I can’t say anything else.”
2018 Iowa race winner James Hinchcliffe finished the race in the third position, while Simon Pagenaud and Spencer Pigot rounded out the top five.
Rossi and Zach Veach were the last two drivers on the lead lap, finishing sixth and seventh, respectively.
Graham Rahal, Sebastian Bourdais and Tony Kannan rounded out the top 10.
The NTT IndyCar Series now heads east to Mid-Ohio SportsCar Course for the Honda Indy 200 on July 28. Live race coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC.