Written by Archie O’Reilly
World Wide Technology Raceway offered up one of the best short oval races in recent IndyCar memory at the weekend. Against the odds, the racing product offered up at the 1.25-mile track, better known as Gateway, was thoroughly captivating. Factor in a hint of aggro and it was a vintage spectacle.
Team Penske finished one-two, with Josef Newgarden winning for a fifth time in nine visits to Gateway since its return to the IndyCar schedule in 2017. Scott McLaughlin was second after starting on pole as Linus Lundqvist took a second podium of his rookie season for Chip Ganassi Racing.
Here is how the podium drivers reacted to a drama-filled affair east of St. Louis…
How Newgarden got the job done
At the front of the field, it was largely a flip-flop between the Penske cars and Meyer Shank Racing’s David Malukas, albeit with others becoming factors through the many strategies unfolding through the field.
Heading into the closing stages of the race, it appeared as though leaders McLaughlin and Newgarden would have to pit for a splash of fuel. On the other side of the win-contending coin, Will Power and Malukas neglected to stop during the race’s fourth caution, pitted later and were fast-charging until the chequered flag.
But a collision between Power and Malukas, causing the latter to crash, resulted in a caution that allowed a free stop - a tyre-and-fuel service - for McLaughlin and Newgarden to remain at the front. But with McLaughlin leading at the time, the order flipped as the No.2 crew of Newgarden delivered a 5.1-second, race-winning pit stop.
“It’s critical,” Newgarden said of the work in the pits. “It’s a critical ingredient. These guys, they’re so good. We’ve had some miscues too. I think we were all pretty sad about Toronto - I felt like we were in a position to challenge for the win, came into that final pit stop, we just had a bobble and it derailed our race for the last stint.
“You come one race later and it may make a difference. It’s a difference-maker tonight. The odds are probably we don’t win the race if they don’t get me out in front… When they’re that good, it helps you win races. I’ve won a lot of races because of my pit crew.”
Newgarden’s race had many dimensions to it, whether a changing strategy picture or Lap 196 half-spin. But while he led only 17 of the 260 laps, he was in position when it mattered.
“The race had a lot of different variations to it,” he said. “We started the race biding our time, we were trying to hit a fuel number. For whatever reason, that wasn’t working for us. When the race picked up pace, I think it really favoured the No.2 car.
“We were able to use the second lane, which was the biggest thing. Once I realised it was usable, I started going and then I think I taught my teammates too quickly that you could use it. They started using it then it got really tough to compete with them because they were just as quick. It was just a hard fight to the end.
“It was really tough trying to get it right with traffic, time the pit stop sequences. Then at the end, if you ask how we got it done, we had a fast car. We were really good in traffic which is a difference-maker. You can’t ignore the final pit stop was a big deal for us… it certainly was a key ingredient to us winning the race.”
It was put to Newgarden post-race that, already called ‘King of Corn Country’ by many due to his Iowa Speedway prowess, he may be the King of Gateway too.
“If I’m a King, King gets knocked off their perch pretty often in this world,” he said. “I would never title myself that. This is the truth. The secret to our success on the ovals has been our cars. You really can’t will everything on an oval.
“You certainly make a difference as a driver. You have to drive the car, get the most out of it. When you have the best cars in the field, it makes your job a lot easier - I think that’s been the case for us. We’ve had incredible oval cars consistently over the last five, six years.
“Our road and street course package has been bumpier, just been up and down as far as consistency. It just starts with having the best cars in the field.”
Read more: Reaction to controversial restart
A memorable ‘Spin to Win’ victory
Newgarden was on the charge and had an excellent run on McLaughlin when he lost the car in Turn 2 just shy of the 200-lap mark. He was attempting to follow McLaughlin in putting a lap on championship-leading Ganassi driver Alex Palou when he lost grip.
Newgarden marginally kept the car out of the wall and race control did a timely job at throwing the caution to ensure he wasn’t collected. Knowing he had to be “pretty aggressive” to win, Newgarden described it as a “similar situation” to race-ending wall contact at Gateway when chasing down a fuel-saving Scott Dixon for the win last year.
“Just good fortune,” Newgarden said of how he managed not to incur any damage. “I got sideways because I pushed just a little high in the grey. ‘Man, I’m going to wreck this car.’ I was like: ‘What an idiot.’ I got sideways, then it’s happening, I’m trying to correct it.
“Then I got the clutch in, engine is still going, no one hits me, we got going again. I think it was just pure luck that we stayed off the wall. I made a mistake and I got away with one.”
Newgarden only dropped from second to fourth given the lack of cars on the lead lap in short oval races. He was easily able to collect himself and go again.
“For me it wasn’t too bad,” Newgarden said. “It wasn’t hard because nothing was broken. I’m getting brand-new tyres, I have the same great race car. Now, if anything, I’m more savvy because I know where the limit is and I know what I can’t do.
“I wasn’t worried to get back on it. We could win this race. I think we had the fastest car in the field, maybe a little bit quicker than our teammates, and they were quite good. I felt confident to get going right again.”
There were many references made to Danny Sullivan spinning en-route to winning the 1985 Indianapolis 500 for Penske.
“Certainly not as beautiful as Danny’s,” Newgarden said in response to comparisons. “Man, he pirouetted. That was a really pretty victory. Mine was probably a little more clumsy-looking. But the same. I never thought I’d have one of those, too. Very cool.”
A battle between (former) Bus Bros
The fight at the front in the closing laps was ultimately between Newgarden and McLaughlin, who up until the start of 2024 shared the popular ‘Bus Bros’ YouTube show. The pair opted to put an end to that this year with focus going elsewhere, which led to online speculation of a falling out.
The drivers’ response to suggestions they are suddenly enemies? Absolutely not.
“I mean, I think it’s natural,” Newgarden said. “I think a lot of people have wanted to pick us apart for multiple reasons this year. The good thing is that’s all external. It’s not an internal thing. If you sit down in our environment, it’s a really great environment, which is nice. It always has been.
“Same thing with Will [Power]. We have a good working environment. We work very closely, probably closer than any other team would be my guess. If you were in our engineering room, we all sit next to each other in a roundtable the entire weekend and we work together to figure out our race cars every single weekend.
“It’s a great environment. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about our group.”
McLaughlin shares Newgarden’s sentiments.
“There’s a lot of stories in the media, tweets… just because we’re not doing Bus Bros anymore doesn’t mean we hate each other,” McLaughlin said. “Our lives have gone one way. That is just how it is. It has got busy in my life, my wife is pregnant, we’re expecting.
“I haven’t got enough time to be a silly bugger all the time. I had some fun, we have some really good fun internally. I think what people don’t see is the engineers behind the scenes working together making sure we have really good packages. We try different things, talk about it at the end of each practice day.
“We have a really good camaraderie in there between not only the drivers but engineers and team management. We all want to win. The best thing about Team Penske is they let us race. It could be just team orders, you just fall in behind. They let us race for the win.
“I think everyone should appreciate that. It’s not just a Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso Ferrari moment from ‘08. It’s legit racing.”
McLaughlin not giving up hope
McLaughlin was arguably the standout performer across the weekend and could easily have been on the top step for a third time in 2024 if things had panned out slightly differently.
Starting from pole, he added to laps led at Gateway years in gone by with 67 laps led - second only to 117 for Power. Jumped by Newgarden in the last pit sequence despite a highly respectable six-second stop, he then detailed a slight issue on the final restart that quelled a last-gasp battle for the win.
“Isn’t it crazy? Two years ago I would have been ecstatic,” McLaughlin said. “Today I feel like we just missed one. It is what it is. I’m very proud of how we ran. DEX Imaging Chevy has been great all weekend. We led a lot of laps and the car just came on as the temps went down on the track.
“It was a little difficult at the start. I didn’t think I was the best car by any means. Once the race started coming to us, I felt we had a really good chance there. The last yellow was good for us, then all the kerfuffle at the end… Ultimately it was just nice to bring home really good points. We’ll just keep this momentum rolling.”
McLaughlin was the highest-scoring championship challenger to Palou, whose lead is starting to verge on being an insurmountable one barring incident in the final four rounds. Last in the standings after the first two races, McLaughlin has closed to within 73 points of the lead and 14 of Colton Herta second in the standings.
“I know I can just keep knocking away,” he said. “We got some big races coming up. It’s going to be tough but we’ll never stop believing. Bon Jovi said it the best: ‘Don’t stop believing.’ That’s our theme song.”
A crucial performance from Lundqvist
Linus Lundqvist has finished inside the top 10 twice in his rookie IndyCar season. The result on both occasions? A third-place finish. And these are peaks that could help to secure a presently uncertain IndyCar future for the 2022 Indy Lights champion.
“Unbelievably happy,” Lundqvist said. “This weekend in itself has not been ideal. We had some issues in P1, then qualifying didn’t go exactly to plan. We knew we had good pace in the car. Especially when we actually got some clean air, I was able to push.
“Most of the race was just fuel running, hitting your fuel mileage, which I think was the same for everybody. We were able to extend. I think we got a little bit lucky with the last yellow, unlucky with the second-to-last yellow. Worked out in the end for us. Towards the end, we had five or six laps to let it go. I knew that a podium was on the cards and we got it done.”
After the final restart of the race, Lundqvist was able to charge past Palou and Herta after restarting fifth.
“I was nervous as anybody [during the red flag],” Lundqvist said. “When they said we were P5 in the restart, I was like: ‘Alright, I wouldn’t be too unhappy if I saw a chequered flag right now. I’d take a P5.’ Then the red came out… I was a little bit worried about what was going to happen with the guys behind us.
“They said: ‘Everybody else was a lap behind.’ That makes me feel a little bit better. I knew we had a pretty big tyre advantage going forward… I think Alex and Herta had 45 or 50-lap-old tyres. We were basically on stickers. I knew we might have a possibility to do something here.”
Lundqvist was never going to do “anything foolish” but was determined to get around Palou, then surge onto Herta, despite his teammate having the points lead.
“When you can get a sniff of that podium champagne, everything is on the cards,” he said.
Lundqvist still sits 17th in the standings despite a pole and pair of podiums. But he is on a run of three successive top-15 finishes after four in the 10 races prior in what has been “a season with a lot of ups and downs” for the leader of the rookie standings.
“It’s been a year of some good highs but some pretty low lows,” he added. “I think it goes for a rookie year campaign. Obviously I’ve done some rookie mistakes but I also think we definitely learned from it. This summer break has been good to take time to reflect. Basically before that it was flat out since the end of April.
“I hadn’t had a proper time to go back and look through everything I learned. It was all preparation for the next weekend. The month of May was hectic. Good to get a bit of a break and let everything settle down. Hopefully now with this momentum we can finish the year off strongly and show what we learned.”
It was a three-race substitute stint at Meyer Shank Racing that earned Lundqvist a Ganassi drive for 2024. And his Gateway display, meaning he has secured a road course and oval podium, is proof of his ability to teams if he does not remain with Ganassi with a possible charter agreement looming.
“Every day when you have a good Saturday, usually Sunday, it’s always a good thing, whether it’s being for next year or moving forward,” Lundqvist said. “My focus right now is just: ‘Finish the year strong and try to show what we learned from the beginning of the year.’
“I’d like to think we’ve showed when everything comes together that we can be as fast as anybody, dare I say. And hopefully look forward to next year and to stringing it all together - what we’re all here to do, which is compete for championships.”
Drivers pleasantly surprised by racing
There were 676 recorded on-track passes at Gateway, with 254 for position; 115 passes came inside the top 10 and 44 inside the top five. With tallies in the late 100s and early 200s at Iowa, drivers were pleasantly surprised by the upturn after downcast pre-race predictions.
“This was a great race,” Newgarden said. “To get two lanes working, it changes the game. It just completely changes the game. I was shocked… When I got up there, it was just very friendly. I think we taught some people in the middle of the race that was usable, then more people started using it. That makes it better. It feeds on itself.
“I think the second half of the race was really entertaining because of that. The package was good tonight. If we’re going to come back next year, same car, it’s what we need to run. We can get other places right. Iowa was obviously tough - think about the variables we had going into that; it’s not just the car was different, the track was totally different.
“I think we can get it right next year and have a better race there. I think we can have a good race in Milwaukee. I’m certainly encouraged it’s possible. Same thing with Nashville. I’m not worried we can’t figure it out.”
Lundqvist said he also “wasn’t overly optimistic” but credited IndyCar for sweeping the high line at every opportunity. McLaughlin also “had a blast” and wore a beaming smile in the post-race press conference.
McLaughlin acknowledged the added factor of the hybrid making it hard to bring the right package first-time at Iowa and maybe in future races. But IndyCar now has knowledge of a package that works.
“First time in probably two years the outside lane was actually working a tonne,” McLaughlin said. “I was up there like 60 laps, 80 laps into a stint and ripping it. Kudos to IndyCar. I think they brought a better package. We’ve made some really good changes. That’s a huge compliment to the series.”
Comments