Iowa Speedway may very well be Josef Newgarden’s favorite track on the IndyCar calendar, if results are any indication.
Newgarden was able to capture his fifth career win at the short track by over three seconds on runner-up Scott McLaughlin. The 2023 Indianapolis 500 champion was able to lap all but five cars of the 28 that started the race.
Newgarden has now won the last four oval races in IndyCar, dating all the way back to last year’s win at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
In a day dominated by Team Penske, Pato O’Ward in his Arrow McLaren was the only other driver to have any kind of pace, finishing third. Marcus Ericsson was able to finish fourth.
The day began with Will Power driving away from the field after winning the pole. Power held the lead on merit until lap 121, when Newgarden made the only pass for the lead outside of pit stop cycles.
Power later tapped the wall on lap 146 and was passed by McLaughlin and O’Ward; he faded in the last 100 laps to finish fifth.
It was a relatively clean race with only one caution. Graham Rahal hit the wall on lap 82 but kept going until lap 152, when Rahal hit the wall again out of turn 4.
Rahal parked the car in the infield as he was already past pit road entrance, and he was the lone driver to not finish the race.
There was a major miscommunication on pit road on lap 220 between Benjamin Pederson, his teammate Santino Ferrucci, and Devlin DeFrancesco. Pederson had an unsafe release, blocking Ferrucci in and almost hitting DeFranceso. Pederson was pushed back to his pit to make a proper release. He would finish 27th, 15 laps down after serving a drive-through penalty.
2023 IndyCar Hy-Vee Homefront 250 Results
Next up for IndyCar is part two of the Iowa doubleheader. The second HyVee-sponsored, 250-lap race will be running at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 23 with coverage on NBC.
About the author
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.