Josef Newgarden won Saturday’s (Aug. 20) Bommarito Automotive Group 500 to secure his third consecutive and fourth overall win at World Wide Technology Raceway in the NTT IndyCar Series.
Behind Newgarden, rookie David Malukas pulled off a daring pass around Scott McLaughlin on the white flag lap and grabbed his career best finish in the process, coming home second.
Newgarden had nothing but praise for his third placed teammate in victory lane.
“I knew Scott was going to be good at the end there, and he had a great restart,” Newgarden told NBC.
“He was no slouch this weekend. He was very, very good and you know, Scott’s done an amazing job; he could’ve easily won this race himself … But I’m glad we were able to come back out on top.”
The race’s conclusion came over two hours behind schedule after rain red flagged the race on lap 217, eight laps after McLaughlin swiped control of the race from Newgarden. McLaughlin and his Penske teammates dominated the evening in St, Louis only being briefly challenged by Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward – and eventually Malukas.
Newgarden took the lead once again as the race got back underway with 43 laps to go, and never relinquished control from that point on.
While Newgarden now moves into second place in the standings, only three points behind Will Power, Malukas may as well have won the race himself after nabbing second place in the race away from McLaughlin at the last moment.
RETWEET to congratulate @malukasdavid!
He passed Scott McLaughlin on the final lap to score a runner-up finish and his first podium in the NTT @INDYCAR SERIES. pic.twitter.com/1unNyuh2Hi
— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) August 21, 2022
Teammates Malukas and Takuma Sato both used fresh tires to mount a last ditch charge to the front, with Malukas making his way around Power, O’Ward, and Colton Herta en route to his attack on McLaughlin. Malukas’ previous best finish had come at Iowa, an eighth place result.
“Unfortunately, two laps to go, that’s the one lap I decided to do the outside lane and it worked so well,” Malukas reflected after the race.
“So, if I would have done that a bit sooner, maybe we could have done something for Newgarden. But, I mean overall that is a win for me, a win for the team. Man, they deserve that so much!”
Power led the first half of the race from a historic pole position until he was overtaken by O’Ward during a restart just beyond the halfway point of the race. The caution triggering said restart featured Jack Harvey making contact with the turn 4 wall, forcing the field’s hand and leading McLaughlin, Newgarden, Sato and others to pit for fresh tires while Power and O’Ward opted to retain their track position.
Long time leader McLaughlin took his initial lead of the race on pit strategy, pitting one lap before his teammate, netting the lead of the race as pit stops cycled through.
Newgarden may well have held off McLaughlin, had he not found himself staring up the gearbox of Christian Lundgaard on pit entry. Having to follow Lundgaard through the pit entry wound up costing Newgarden 1.065 seconds on pit road, allowing McLaughlin to decisively pass the two-time champion on the backstretch on lap 209.
Rinus VeeKay was the race’s only retirement after an electrical issue struck the Dutchman during the first quarter of the race. Harvey’s lap 144 scrape with the wall was the only caution for an incident on track throughout the race.\
Next up for the NTT IndyCar Series will be the Grand Prix of Portland from Portland International Raceway. Coverage will begin Sunday, Sept 4, at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.
The finishing order of the 2022 Bommarito Automotive Group 500 is:
- Josef Newgarden
- David Malukas
- Scott McLaughlin
- Pato O’Ward
- Takuma Sato
- Will Power
- Marcus Ericsson
- Scott Dixon
- Alex Palou
- Graham Rahal
- Colton Herta
- Devlin DeFrancesco
- Romain Grosjean
- Jimmie Johnson,
- Helio Castroneves
- Felix Rosenqvist
- Kyle Kirkwood
- Dalton Kellett
- Christian Lundgaard
- Simon Pagenaud
- Callum Ilott
- Ed Carpenter
- Conor Daly
- Jack Harvey
- Alexander Rossi
- Rinus VeeKay
About the author
Alex is the IndyCar Content Director at Frontstretch, having initially joined as an entry-level contributor in 2021. He also serves as Managing Director of The Asia Cable, a publication focused on the international affairs and politics of the Asia-Pacific region which he co-founded in 2023. With previous experience in China, Japan and Poland, Alex is particularly passionate about the international realm of motorsport and the politics that make the wheels turn - literally - behind the scenes.
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It was a fantastic race, but you wouldn’t have known it was based on this recap. Was there anyone else available to write this who actually watched the race and wouldn’t just go through the motions?
To be fair, the first 2/3 of the race was not that interesting as everyone was anticipating rain and mostly in fuel save mode to try and stretch each stint as far as possible (trying to avoid being hung out a lap down when the rain showed up). Outside of some moves on the start, and Pato making a little noise working toward the front, most others seemed content to play the fuel save game.
Post rain, the final 40 laps made up for it with multiple duels for position on track (the primary two being Newgarden / McLaughlin and Malukas storming to the front) while Dixon and surprisingly Power were in full damage control trying to limit points loss on a not horrible, but less than stellar day for both.
Points are tight, the next two races for the Championship should be good!
Uggh – and I feel asleep during the red and still haven’t seen the final 40
Moreover, you may want to hire an editor that would have avoided the glaring errors present. That may require actually paying someone.