Road America IndyCar: Palou snatches win after Newgarden gearbox drama

Newgarden had controlled the unshortened race through four circumspection periods but, on the final restart preceding a two-lap shootout to the end, the two-time champion’s car was stuck in fifth gear and left the Penske suburbanite having to momentum at a crawl.

Palou could simply nip past surpassing Turn 1, and put together a healthy buffer over Colton Herta to requirement victory – pursuit up his impressive form at the spin where he chalked up his first podium finish last season driving for Dale Coyne Racing.

Newgarden had held onto pole at the start of the race and built up a healthy 6.5s lead over Palou without the first round of stops, surpassing his lead was wiped out without a spin for Jimmie Johnson introduced the first circumspection period.

The seven-time NASCAR champion unprotected the grass at Turn 7 propelling his Chip Ganassi Racing-run car into the opposite wall to put a dampener on his most well-constructed performance yet as an IndyCar driver.

Palou stayed with Newgarden at the restart, sitting just within a second of the leading Penske, but racing was put on ice once increasingly when Detroit Race 1 winner Marcus Ericsson produced the second caution, transmissible the dirt on the exit of Turn 3 and spinning while under pressure from Graham Rahal.

All but two cars stopped during that caution, with Kevin Magnussen and Takuma Sato staying out – leaving Magnussen to pick up the lead of the race in his first IndyCar start as a replacement for the out-of-action Felix Rosenqvist at Arrow McLaren SP.

But without Magnussen stopped at the end of Lap 31, and ground to a halt three laps later at Turn 7 as his engine cut out, a third circumspection period was widow into the mix.

Sato’s prior stop brought Newgarden and Palou when up to the front, both holding station pursuit the final pitstops and through having to deal with a remoter hodgepodge of off-strategy cars.

But with five laps to go, Ed Jones’ left-rear suspension appeared to unravel and put him off at Turn 11 – producing a final caution.

That circumspection proved fatal for Newgarden’s victory chances, which remoter extends Penske’s IndyCar win drought having not had a suburbanite on the top step of the podium since last year’s St. Petersburg finale.

Palou finished 1.9s well-spoken of Herta, who spent the opening part of race rival Andretti Autosport team-mates Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay, surpassing drawing well-spoken of his stablemates without the second caution.

Will Power personal third, finishing just over a second well-spoken of Scott Dixon – who managed to proceeds a slight overcut on a number of runners during the final round of stops.

Romain Grosjean put in a livewire performance in fifth, showing spanking-new car tenancy in his wheel-to-wheel whoopee and capping it off with an spanking-new outside pass on Alexander Rossi at Turn 1 surpassing the final caution.

The Dale Coyne Racing suburbanite just held off fellow ex-Formula 1 suburbanite Ericsson, who finished two and a half seconds well-spoken of Rossi.

Sato managed to make an out-of-sync strategy work, albeit helped by the final caution, to requirement eighth, fractions overdue Rossi.

Pato O’Ward finished ninth, losing ground to Palou in the title battle, as Max Chilton performed a similar strategy to Sato and personal 10th – having led the race superiority of the final yellow period.

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