IndyCar: Will Power wins 2018 oval championship

By Asher Fair | Aug 26, 2018

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - MAY 27: Will Power, the current leader of the IndyCar championship standings (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

Will Power secured the 2018 oval championship by winning the sixth and final oval race of the 2018 IndyCar season, the Bommarito Automotive Group 500.

Team Penske’s Will Power entered the sixth and final oval race of the 17-race 2018 IndyCar season, the Bommarito Automotive Group 500, at Gateway Motorsports Park in third place in the oval standings. He trailed Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon.

Rossi entered the 248-lap race around the four-turn, 1.25-mile (2.012-kilometer) Gateway Motorsports Park oval in Madison, Illinois on top of the oval standings with 212 points in the first five oval races of the season. Dixon trailed him by just two points with 210 points, and Power trailed him by nine points with 203 points.

By winning the Bommarito Automotive Group 500, Power scored 51 championship points, 50 for winning the race and one for leading at least one of its laps, to go toward his point total in the oval standings. This brought him to a final total of 254 points in this season’s oval standings.

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Meanwhile, Rossi finished the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 in second place. He scored 41 championship points, 40 for finishing in second and one for leading at least one of the race’s laps, bringing his point total in oval races to 253 this year.

Finally, Dixon finished the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 in third place. He scored 38 championship points, 35 for finishing in third, two for leading more laps than anybody else in the field (145 laps led) and one for leading at least one of the race’s laps. As a result, his point total in the oval standings shot up to 248.

Team Penkse’s Josef Newgarden was the only other driver who entered the Bommarito Automotive Group with a reasonable chance of securing this season’s oval championship. He entered the race in fourth place in the oval standings with 190 points. The 26 points he earned as a result of his seventh place finish brought him to 216 points in this year’s oval races.

As a result, Power won the 2018 IndyCar oval championship by just one point over Rossi, six points over Dixon and 38 points over Newgarden.

Power’s 2018 oval championship is the first oval championship of his IndyCar career. He did win five road/street course championships from the 2010 season through the 2015 season, as he only failed to win it in the 2013 season.

The 37-year-old Australian only finished four of the six oval races that were contested this season, but he did what he needed to do in those four races to secure the oval championship. He won two of them: the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 and the double points-paying Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Power finished in sixth place in the Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway and second in the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway. He crashed out of both the Desert Diamond West Valley Casino Phoenix Grand Prix at ISM Raceway and the DXC Technology 600 at Texas Motor Speedway.

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Congratulations to Will Power for winning his first career IndyCar oval championship. He will now set his sights on winning his sixth career IndyCar road/street course championship and his second career IndyCar championship over the course of the season’s final two races, which are both road course races.