Palou Wins Iowa Race Two; Penske’s Run Of Bad Luck Continues
NEWTON, Iowa. — The recent run of bad luck that has befallen Team Penske is now one of historic proportions. So much so that it almost completely overshadowed Alex Palou gathering his seventh win of the season on Sunday at Iowa Speedway.
The victory is Palou’s second ever on an oval, the first being his victory at the Indianapolis 500 earlier this year.
“Speechless, honestly. It’s been an unbelievable day and an incredible year for us,” Palou said. “Winning here is special. I’ve struggled on short ovals. But, it worked out for us. Seven wins in one year is insane!”
The Penske bad luck reared its head from the very beginning. On lap one, Scott McLaughlin got tangled up by Devlin DeFrancesco as the field came to the green flag. His day was over before it began. Not long after that, Will Power’s car lost power and had to be retired from the race.
This only left Josef Newgarden as the only Penske car left in the fight, and fight he did.
Not long after the restart from the opening lap caution, Newgarden, who started third, soon found himself in a duel for the lead with Palou, who started on pole. Newgarden made easy work of his Chip Ganassi rival as he took the lead after just over 50 laps had come and gone.
But, Newgarden needed to pit for fuel soon after taking the lead. As Newgarden dove for pit road a caution came out when Marcus Ericsson blew a left-front tire, which had been an issue for all Andretti cars throughout the weekend. The caution killed all of Newgarden’s hard work as he would have to cycle back into the field, which had not pitted yet.
Restarting 11th, Newgarden once again had to work his way through the field. He battled with Christian Rasmussen, clawed by Alexander Rossi, breezed past Pato O’Ward, tackled David Malukas, and seemingly struggled by half the field, and eventually got himself back into the third position.
On a restart for another caution involving Callum Ilott, Newgarden seized the moment and went hard passed Malukas again, and eventually dive-bombed Palou with 35 laps left.
But, yet again, Newgarden needed to pit for the final time, and wouldn’t you know it….. it happened again. Colton Herta, driving an Andretti car, had a left-front tire fail, sending him into the wall. This brought out another caution that once again killed all of Newgarden’s momentum while he was on pit road.
With the day lost for Newgarden, this opened the door for Alex Palou to cruise to his seventh win of the season. Oddly enough, Scott Dixon was able to grab the second spot after not being a factor all day. Marcus Armstrong slotted in third for his first podium of the season.
With the win, Palou is now 129-points clear of Pato O’Ward in the championship standings. O’Ward was fifth for the day. It should be mentioned that David Malukas nearly had several race winning moves on the day, but he ultimately mustered a fourth-place result.
Newgarden was able to finish 10th. The DNF (Did Not Finish) results for McLaughlin and Power now make ten DNF’s this season, the most since the 2000 Champ Car World Series season.
The series will keep on trucking north of the border next weekend when they tackle the streets of Toronto.
