King of the oval tracks, Josef Newgarden won the IndyCar round held at Phoenix Raceway, thus securing his first victory of the season and taking the lead in the IndyCar championship.
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The Team Penske driver, already a winner during the discipline’s last visit to this circuit in 2018, thus continues the momentum from the end of the previous season: he had also won the last oval race held at Nashville Superspeedway last August.
A decisive strategy
Starting from the outside of the front row, Newgarden spent a long time in the top 5 without truly dominating the event. However, the race was decided during the last caution, 42 laps from the finish of this 250-lap race: the American then chose to dive into the pit lane, followed notably by Pato O’Ward (McLaren).
At the restart, Newgarden quickly proved very incisive: he first overtook O’Ward before setting off in pursuit of leader Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti). Seven laps from the finish, he finally made the decisive move to take the lead and cruise toward victory.
Kirkwood, who had adopted an offset strategy to lead at the end of the event, had to settle for second place. However, this result allows him to move up to second in the championship behind Newgarden. Third place goes to David Malukas (Penske), who had secured the first pole position of his career.
Rasmussen close to a feat
However, the race could have taken a completely different turn for Christian Rasmussen (Carpenter). The Dane seemed well on his way to winning for the second consecutive time on a short oval after his victory on the Milwaukee Mile last year.
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But constant risk-taking in overtaking caused contact with Will Power, leading to the decisive caution 42 laps from the finish. Rasmussen managed to keep the lead at the restart despite an initial contact with the wall, but a second brush against the outside wall finally relegated him to 14th place. A viking who was definitely too wild!
Palou in the wall
The race was even more frustrating for defending champion Álex Palou (Ganassi). Winner of the opening round in St Petersburg, the Spaniard only completed 22 laps in the middle of the pack before ending up in the wall after contact with Rinus VeeKay (Juncos).
The misfortune was even more severe for Romain Grosjean. The Dale Coyne Racing driver could not even start the race due to a mechanical problem on his car before the formation lap. His young teammate Dennis Hauger finished fifteenth and first rookie, while Mick Schumacher (Rahal), well-qualified on the second row for his first steps on an oval, gradually dropped back to eighteenth place, 4 laps behind the winner.
The IndyCar championship will quickly follow up with a new event next Sunday on a brand-new street circuit in Arlington, Texas, which will mark a new stage in this already lively season. In the meantime, Belgian viewers can relive this Phoenix meeting Wednesday evening around 9 p.m.
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