Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden claimed his fourth IndyCar victory of the season and third in the last four races with his win at Gateway.
Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden became the first IndyCar driver to win four races through 15 races so far this season. He did so with a victory in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Illinois.
Newgarden held off Scott Dixon, the highest-finishing Honda driver, in 2nd place. He held him off by 0.6850 seconds to take the victory. The win was his seventh career IndyCar victory, and his lead in the championship standings grew as a result of his third win in the last four races and fourth straight top 2 finish dating back to the Toronto race.
Newgarden ultimately took the lead before hanging on to win the race thanks to a daring pass of teammate Simon Pagenaud on the inside heading into turn 1 late. Pagenaud was clearly not happy with the move, but he refused so say anything “not nice” about it. He ended up finished in 3rd place.
Other Notable Statistics
The race featured 11 lead changes among six different drivers. Josef Newgarden led the most laps, leading 170 of the race’s 248. Helio Castroneves, Simon Pagenaud, Sebastien Bourdais, Will Power and Max Chilton also led laps throughout the race.
The race featured five caution flag periods for a total of 43 laps. The first caution flag of the race came out before the race began when Tony Kanaan spun in turn 2.
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The second caution flag of the race followed on lap 6 during the initial restart of the race when Will Power spun, causing a chain reaction spin involving Takuma Sato and Ed Carpenter. Carpenter’s car then backed into Power’s car, hopping up over top of it into the turn 2 fence in scary-looking fashion.
The third caution flag of the race came out on lap 102 when JR Hildebrand hit the wall in turn 4. The fourth caution flag of the race came out on lap 166 when Max Chilton hit the wall in turn 4 as well. The fifth and final caution flag of the race came out on lap 203 when Ryan Hunter-Reay made slight contact with the wall in turn 2.
Here are full race results for the 2017 Bommarito Automotive Group 500.
- Josef Newgarden, #2, Team Penske, Chevrolet
- Scott Dixon, #9, Chip Ganassi Racing, Honda
- Simon Pagenaud, #1, Team Penske, Chevrolet
- Helio Castroneves, #3, Team Penske, Chevrolet
- Conor Daly, #4, AJ Foyt Enterprises, Chevrolet
- Alexander Rossi, #98, Andretti Herta Autosport, Honda
- Charlie Kimball, #83, Chip Ganassi Racing, Honda
- James Hinchcliffe, #5, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Honda
- Carlos Munoz, #14, AJ Foyt Enterprises, Chevrolet
- Sebastian Bourdais, #18, Dale Coyne Racing, Honda
- Sebastian Saavedra, #7, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Honda
- Graham Rahal, #15, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Honda
- Ed Jones, #19, Dale Coyne Racing, Honda
- Marco Andretti, #27, Andretti Autosport, Honda
- Ryan Hunter-Reay, #28, Andretti Autosport, Honda
- Tony Kanaan, #10, Chip Ganassi Racing, Honda
- Max Chilton, #8, Chip Ganassi Racing, Honda
- JR Hildebrand, #21, Ed Carpenter Racing, Chevrolet
- Takuma Sato, #26, Andretti Autosport, Honda
- Will Power, #12, Team Penske, Chevrolet
- Ed Carpenter, #20, Ed Carpenter Racing, Chevrolet
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