USA TODAY International Edition
Hinchcliffe gets Indy redemption with Iowa win
NEWTON, Iowa – It looked like no one was going to catch Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden. His car was too fast, his team too good.
But James Hinchcliffe and the No. 5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team had a rocket ship of their own, and Hinchcliffe guided it past Newgarden with less than 50 laps to go and never relented.
“I think I was more surprised by how much (Hinchcliffe) picked up,” Newgarden said. “We had a great car. It’s a tough pill to swallow. Sometimes you just don’t have it at the end. You can forecast that thing. It was a good day. It could have been great; it wasn’t. So we’ll go on to the next one.”
Hinchcliffe pulled away from Newgarden and won the Verizon IndyCar Series Iowa Corn 300 under caution after Ed Carpenter hit the wall with four laps to go. The win was Hinchcliffe’s second at Iowa, the sixth of his career and a shot of redemption after failing to qualify for this year’s Indianapolis 500.
“This is such a good feeling after what happened in May,” Hinchcliffe said in victory lane. “We knew we had it in us. We had a really good car. Great battle with Josef and Spencer (Pigot) today.”
While a win at Iowa won’t make up for that, he will certainly take solace in his first victory since Long Beach last year. Runner-up Spencer Pigot and Takuma Sato joined Hinchcliffe on the podium after each stayed out following the caution for Carpenter.
Newgarden and Robert Wickens, who had been running second and third, pitted for fresh tires counting on a onelap shootout to the finish following a green flag restart. But the race never went back to green, costing the two drivers podium finishes.
See you in the winner’s circle
There will be few happier people in Iowa than Pigot, who delivered the best result of his IndyCar career with his runner-up finish. There was pressure on him entering the race with his predecessors podiuming here the previous three years, and he answered the bell.
Sato also will have a big smile on his face after registering his first podium as a member of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. His third-place finish Sunday was his first top-three since winning the 2017 Indianapolis 500.
You must remember this
There were a lot of unhappy IndyCar fans following the oval races at Phoenix, Indianapolis and Texas because of a lack of on-track action. I can’t imagine there will be similar complaints following nearly 1,000 passes Sunday at Iowa Speedway. Hinchcliffe led the way with more than 80 passes while five other drivers posted more than 60.
Drive another day
The rookie year growing pains continue for Harding Racing and its veteran driver Gabby Chaves. After a decent start to the weekend, qualifying P16, the No. 88 plummeted to the back of the field at the start of Sunday’s race and could never recover.
And getting lapped by most of the field, the team elected to call it quits in the name of safety.
The team Twitter account tweeted, “Today we have had an ill-handling car and in the view of safety we have decided to retire early from the race.”
Chaves and the No. 88 team have yet to crack the top 10 this year, with a best finish of 14th at both the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and the Indy 500. It’s not uncommon for a new team to struggle in its debut season but dropping out of the race completely has to be a big disappointment for a team that fared well on a few ovals when dipping its toes in the IndyCar waters last year.
Quote of the weekend
“If you get a car within the right setup window — the window to get it right is so small — so if you get a couple of guys who get it just right, they’re going to take off.” — Ryan Hunter-Reay
I don’t know if Hunter-Reay, who had a fine car but suffered a late mechanical issue had to settle for a 19th-place finish, knew he was forecasting Hinchcliffe and Newgarden’s dominance, but he absolutely nailed it.