IndyCar: 2018 Iowa Corn 300 results – James Hinchcliffe wins

James Hinchcliffe earned his first IndyCar victory in over one year by winning the 11th race of the 2018 season, the Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe took the checkered flag under caution in front of the rest of the field in his #5 Honda in the 11th race of the 17-race 2018 IndyCar season, the Iowa Corn 300, for his first victory of the season, his second career victory at Iowa Speedway and the sixth victory of his IndyCar career. He started the race in 11th place.

Hinchcliffe’s victory in the 300-lap race around the four-turn, 0.894-mile (1.439-kilometer) Iowa Speedway oval in Newton, Iowa is his first victory since he won the race on the streets of Long Beach, California last year, and it is his first win at Iowa Speedway since he dominated the race in 2013.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Spencer Pigot finished 2.6491 seconds behind Hinchcliffe under caution as the race’s highest finishing Chevrolet driver in a career-high second place in his #21 Chevrolet after a bizarre sequence at the end of the race, which will be discussed in more detail later in this article, started by contact involving his teammate and team owner Ed Carpenter Racing and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato.

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Sato finished the race in third place in his #30 Honda. His third place finish is his highest finish since he won last year’s Indianapolis 500, and it is just his second podium finish since the middle of the 2015 season when he finished in second in the second race of the Dual in Detroit on the streets of Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan.

The Iowa Corn 300 featured a total of four lead changes among four drivers. Aside of Hinchcliffe, who led laps of the race, a total of other drivers led at least one lap of the race. Those drivers were Sato, Josef Newgarden and race polesitter Will Power. Newgarden led more laps than anybody else in the field with 229 laps led.

The race also featured a total of two caution flag periods for 17 laps. The first caution flag period began on lap 139 when Zach Veach hit the wall. The second and final caution flag period began on lap 294 when Carpenter and Sato made contact, causing a piece of Carpenter’s front wing to come off in the middle of the track.

This caution flag period set the stage for an extremely anticlimactic finish. Newgarden and Robert Wickens were running in second and third place, respectively, when they decided to pit for fresh tires in hopes of being able to carve through the field on a restart.

Meanwhile, the other three lead-lap drivers, Hinchcliffe, Pigot and Sato, stayed out on the track in first, second and third place, respectively. The green flag was expected to wave with one lap to go, but the race stayed under caution and finished with those three drivers as the podium finishers.

Newgarden and Wickens finished in fourth and fifth, respectively, as the only other two drivers on the lead lap. A total of 19 of the 22 drivers who started the race finished it.

Here are the full race results of the 2018 Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway.

Rank	Driver	Car, Team, Engine
1	James Hinchcliffe	#5, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Honda
2	Spencer Pigot	#21, Ed Carpenter Racing, Chevrolet
3	Takuma Sato	#30, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Honda
4	Josef Newgarden	#1, Team Penske, Chevrolet
5	Robert Wickens	#6, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Honda
6	Will Power	#12, Team Penske, Chevrolet
7	Graham Rahal	#15, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Honda
8	Simon Pagenaud	#22, Team Penske, Chevrolet
9	Alexander Rossi	#27, Andretti Autosport, Honda
10	Ed Carpenter	#20, Ed Carpenter Racing, Chevrolet
11	Sebastien Bourdais	#18, Dale Coyne Racing, Honda
12	Scott Dixon	#9, Chip Ganassi Racing, Honda
13	Ed Jones	#10, Chip Ganassi Racing, Honda
14	Charlie Kimball	#23, Carlin Motorsport, Chevrolet
15	Max Chilton	#59, Carlin Motorsport, Chevrolet
16	Marco Andretti	#98, Andretti Herta Autosport, Honda
17	Tony Kanaan	#14, A.J. Foyt Enterprises, Chevrolet
18	Zachary Claman DeMelo	#19, Dale Coyne Racing, Honda
19	Ryan Hunter-Reay	#28, Andretti Autosport, Honda
20	Zach Veach	#26, Andretti Autosport, Honda
21	Gabby Chaves	#88, Harding Racing, Chevrolet
22	Matheus Leist	#4, A.J. Foyt Enterprises, Chevrolet

Next: Top 10 IndyCar drivers of all-time

The next IndyCar race is the Honda Indy Toronto. That race is scheduled to be held on Sunday, July 15 starting at 3:00 p.m. ET, and it is scheduled to be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network from the streets of Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada starting at that time.