2016 Iowa Corn 300 Preview: Penske vs. Andretti

The 2016 Iowa Corn 300 is a battle of present vs. past. Team Penske controls the Verizon IndyCar Series season but Andretti Autosport historically owns Iowa Speedway. Who will dominate Sunday?

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Two of IndyCar’s Big Three teams will be looking to shine at the 2016 Iowa Corn 300.

Team Penske once again is at the top of the speed charts going into Sunday. Simon Pagenaud drove the No. 22 to his fifth pole position of the season in qualifying, with teammate Helio Castroneves also in the Firestone Fast Six.

The statistics just keep on coming for a team that seemingly has it all.

A Penske driver has won six of the nine IndyCar races this year, and captured nine of the ten Verizon P1 Awards for pole position.

They have also had the driver leading the most laps in seven of nine events. Only at Phoenix (Scott Dixon) and the Indianapolis 500 (Ryan Hunter-Reay) has Penske not led more laps than any other team.

A win in the Iowa Corn 300 would only further lock their grip on an IndyCar title. All three of the top drivers in the 2016 championship standings – Pagenaud, Castroneves and Will Power – are members of Team Penske.

But IndyCar is coming to a track that historically has been the playground of Andretti Autosport.

Andretti’s 2014 Indianapolis 500 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay (pictured above) enters Sunday as the defending Iowa Corn 300 race winner. He’ll be looking for his third consecutive victory at Iowa Speedway.

Hunter-Reay can certainly use the victory; he currently sits 11th in championship points without a win after pit lane contact knocked him out of winning the 2016 Indy 500.

His teammate Marco Andretti will be on the warpath too, as he hasn’t won a race since driving to Victory Lane at Iowa five years ago.

Andretti has won seven of the nine IndyCar races at Iowa.

But both will have an uphill battle in this year’s Iowa Corn 300, as they qualified 19th and 20th out of 22 cars respectively, with Andretti spinning out in Saturday practice.

So which team will be able to press their advantage on Sunday?

The present momentum would seem to be with Penske, who have rarely put a wheel wrong so far in 2016. Fans will recall, however, that they had a similarly strong run in 2015 before things began to fall apart and the championship ultimately went to Dixon.

Iowa is where Juan Pablo Montoya had the suspension failure that gave him his lowest finish of the year and began the skid of his seemingly championship season. Will Pagenaud be able to avoid a similar fate, especially with his own technical gremlin from Road America still fresh in his memory?

Or will Hunter-Reay repeat what he did in 2015, capturing his first win of the season at Iowa and using that to gain some late season momentum both for himself and for an Andretti team that’s in need of a 2016 boost?

Anything can happen in IndyCar, but the 2016 Iowa Corn 300 looks to be a slugfest between the two major teams with the direction of the league championship hanging in the balance.

The 2016 Iowa Corn 300 begins at 5:40 p.m. ET/2:40 p.m. PT tonight, with the race broadcast at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT on NBCSN.