World of Sport: Indycar; Australian Supercars; Super Formula; NASCAR Cup; IMSA
INDYCAR SERIES IOWA SPEEDWAY (USA) JULY 8 ROUND 10/16
For 229 laps, Josef Newgarden looked like the probable winner of last Sunday’s Iowa Corn 300. He had wrested the lead away from polesitting Team Penske Dallarachevrolet team-mate Will Power on lap 24 and then rapidly pulled away.
The only matter of concern for the #1 team was the progress of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe, who had qualified his Honda-powered car down in 11th but had dispensed with the likes of Scott Dixon, Ryan Hunter-reay (a threetime winner at this 0.894-mile oval), Alexander Rossi and finally Power to run second – all by lap 40.
That was not long past the halfway point of the first stint for all the frontrunners who’d elected to try to make it on three stops, despite heavy tyre degradation. These cars had qualified (in the case of the Penske drivers and Andretti Autosport man Hunter-reay) at over 180mph average and would spend the bulk of their race stints running between 156 and 162mph, depending on traffic.
Had there been more caution periods, there would probably have been more pitstops from the majority of the leaders. But in the absence of those, and factoring in that you lose two to two and a half laps by pitting under green-flag conditions, most felt obliged to eke out their tyre life.
So there was Hinchcliffe on lap 41, up into second but 8.2 seconds in arrears to Newgarden. Following the first round of pitstops 40 laps later, he was still second but – credit to SPM’S pit crew and Hinchcliffe’s decisiveness through traffic – the gap was down to 4.5s.
Just before half-distance, out came the yellow for the first time. Zach Veach, who’d caught fire briefly in the pitlane (just like at Indy) but had driven hard and fast to eighth, drifted up into the grey in Turn 4 and smacked the wall. Newgarden, Hinchcliffe, the highly impressive Spencer Pigot in the second Ed Carpenter Racing entry and Takuma Sato of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing made their second stops, while everyone who had gone a lap down stayed out a little longer before pitting in order to get their lap back.
Hinchcliffe saw this restart as the ideal time in which to work on Newgarden, but the Penske car was faster at the start of a stint, and Hinchcliffe first had to survive a fraught four-lap side-by-side fight with Pigot. Once firmly established in second, Hinchcliffe kept the gap to Newgarden at barely more than one second. Crucially, his tyre degradation was no worse than that of the leader.
Then Hinchcliffe made a slight error, washing up the track in the wake of a backmarker and having to lift off. Sato, who’d been able to get around Pigot some 40 laps earlier, was able to cruise past the SPM car to grab second.
The leaders’ third and final stop came just past the 220-lap mark. While he emerged from the pits in third behind Pigot, Hinchcliffe swiftly passed the Carpenter driver and then closed up on Newgarden. When the leader struggled to lap team-mate Power, Hinchcliffe passed the pair of them and checked out.
The second caution of the race flew with six laps to go for Ed Carpenter getting sideways and being clipped by Sato, leaving a large piece of front wing on the track. Penske pitted Newgarden and SPM brought in its other star, Robert Wickens (who had climbed to third), in the hope there would be enough green-flag laps at the end in which new tyres could make a difference. In fact there were none, and the race ended under yellow.
Thus Newgarden needlessly slipped from second to fourth, and Wickens from third to fifth, allowing the remarkable Pigot into second, and Sato into third.
Power admitted afterwards that his car was only good enough for the top five. So the radio issue in the first stint that for three laps prevented him from hearing his team call him to the pits, and which dropped him briefly to 10th, had probably only cost him one place.
For other title contenders, the day was more disappointing still. Hunter-reay was fighting Power for sixth when he suffered a suspension issue that ultimately forced him to retire. Rossi had oversteer in the first stint and then stalled during a pitstop. Points leader Dixon was never in the hunt, and had to make an extra pitstop when his front tyres were mounted incorrectly. He finished four laps down in 12th.