ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – Sunday’s REV Group Grand Prix at Road America ended up being a battle between two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden one of the tour’s rising stars, Alex Palou.
For the second-straight week Newgarden had the dominant car only to falter at the end of the race. Last week in Detroit, it was a set of worn Firestone Red tires that allowed Pato O’Ward to speed past Newgarden with three laps to go to win race.
Sunday at Road America, Newgarden once again dominated the race, only for his car to suffer a mechanical failure during a restart with two laps left. That handed the lead, and the victory, to Palou.
Palou, who likes to celebrate NTT IndyCar Series wins with a plate of fried chicken with fries, blew past Newgarden during the final restart entering turn one. Newgarden’s Chevy would not upshift, and that killed the power of the engine and any shot he had at scoring Team Penske’s first victory of the season.
As for Palou, he was able to pilot the NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Honda to his second IndyCar Series victory of the season and regain the NTT IndyCar points lead after O’Ward held it for one week.
As Palou was celebrating the victory in victory lane at Road America, Newgarden’s ailing Chevrolet sputtered down pit lane, where it came to a stop.
The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion was despondent for the second week in a row.
“I couldn’t get it to shift into sixth gear, and then I got it stuck in fifth in turn one and finally got it to go down, but just could not get it to upshift after that,” Newgarden explained. “So, I got it down to first essentially. I just trying to stay out of the way after that because I couldn’t get it to upshift after that. I’m not sure what happened.
“Obviously its’ disappointing for all of us. I know we had a great car. We had a good car all day and were doing everything we had to do. We were surviving the yellows. Surviving the fuel game. We had a rocket ship. Team Chevy did a good job for us. We had such amazing fuel mileage and good power. I’m super pleased about that. Proud of our teams. Proud of our partners.
“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be again. I think we have fast cars; it’s just not working out right now.”
Newgarden started on the pole and led 32 laps in the 55-lap contest. By comparison, Palou started fifth and led five laps.
But Palou’s Honda did not falter at the end of a wild race that featured 11 lead changes between seven drivers and was slowed just four times for seven laps of caution.
“We were getting even closer to Josef, so I was really happy, and then I don’t know what happened to him, but we took the lead,” said the 24-year-old driver from Spain. “That was super exciting.
“I just went for the outside. It was quite close. Even if he was a bit slower, I was super close, so I had to just turn in quite aggressively, and then I just ran. I didn’t know if my tires were good enough to keep the lead. It was only two laps, but those two laps when you’re in the lead, they can take forever.”
It was Palou’s second win of the season as he joins O’Ward as the only drivers in the series to win more than one race this year. He opened the season with a win at Barber Motorsports Park in April. He dominated that race, but on Sunday he capitalized on another driver’s bad luck.
“A win is a win, and it always feels awesome even if it’s your lucky day or just because you have really good pace,” Palou said. “But for sure the first win, it’s always awesome just because it’s the first one, and you knew you could win but you never really know if you can win until you win it.
“This feels super special, as well. We’ve been close. Indy road course, Detroit, Indy 500, and today I was like, ‘oh, no, we need to get that win.”
“As I said, a win is a win. It’s always the best thing.”
From Newgarden’s clean start to Palou’s surprise finish, in-between featured its own storylines including fill-in driver Kevin Magnussen leading six laps in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Honda that is normally driven by the ailing Felix Rosenqvist. He is on the mend from injuries suffered in a crash in last week’s first race of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.
Rookie driver Romain Grosjean was once again impressive on the road course, battling Alexander Rossi near the end and finishing fifth.
Another rookie, Jimmie Johnson, was having a solid race before he spun by himself in turn seven on lap 16. That put the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion one lap down, and he finished 22nd.
Once in the lead, Palou battled Colton Herta for the victory, defeating the Andretti Autosport driver by 1.9106 seconds. Team Penske’s Will Power was third in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet with Dixon fourth and Grosjean fifth.
Newgarden went from apparent winner to 21st after dominating the race.
“But now we will claw,” Newgarden said. “We will claw our way back. This is not what I was planning for this day. I would have liked for us to be a little closer. But what are we 88 (points back)? It’s just a bigger challenge when we go to next race.
“We’ll get after it.”
Meantime, Palou was ready to get after his victory dinner.
“Yes, I need fried chicken,” he said. “Fried chicken is excellent everywhere. Yeah, I’m going to have fried chicken.”
There were 231 on track passes, the most since the IndyCar Series returned to Road America in 2016. There were 194 passes for position, also the most since the return of the series to the track.