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IndyCar News: Newgarden ‘spins and wins’ Bommarito 500

Lucille Dust

Josef Newgarden did a Danny Sullivan move by ‘Spinning and Winning’ the 2024 Bommarito 500 NTT IndyCar race at World Wide Technology Raceway (WWTR).

Newgarden spun on lap 196 all by himself, and, like Danny Sullivan in the 1985 Indy 500, by pure dumb luck did not hit anything.  Later, his pit crew changed four tires in 5.1 seconds, and he was able to beat the race leader and polesitter, Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin, out of the pits on the final stop under caution.

“I pushed a little hard in that moment, made a mistake and then I was so thankful that we didn’t wreck because I knew we could gather this up and still win this race,” Newgarden said.

“You can’t ignore that final pit stop was a big deal for us,” Newgarden said. “It’s hard to say if it works out if we don’t get that done, but it certainly was a key ingredient to us winning the race.”

From there, Newgarden survived two race restarts, the last one with six laps to go.  On the final restart, he pulled away from McLaughlin each lap to win his 31st career IndyCar race by 1.726s.  This was the American’s fifth win at this track, and 4th in the last 5 years.

Linus Lundqvist, driving like a man possessed, passed Alex Palou and then Colton Herta with two laps to go to take the final podium position.

Herta had to settle for 4th place ahead of point leader Alex Palou. Palou finished 6.05s behind Newgarden.

After the race’s conclusion, Race Control issued Herta a blocking penalty and dropped the Andretti Global driver to a 5th-place finish.  Alex Palou was then given fourth place and still retains the championship lead by 59 points over second place Colton Herta.

The third Penske driver, Will Power, was hit from behind by Alexander Rossi on the next to last restart and was furious at Newgarden because he was changing speeds coming to the green flag causing the cars behind to also change speeds abruptly and Power blamed it all on Newgarden’s dirty tactics.

A livid Will Power gives his Penske teammate Josef Newgarden the finger for his dirty driving tactics that caused Alexander Rossi to run into the back of him on the penultimate restart.

As the field approached the green flag, they got stacked up behind Newgarden with Alexander Rossi’s car flying over the rear of Power’s. Jack Harvey and Romain Grosjean also were collected and INDYCAR issued a red flag to clear the debris.

Reviewing the Peacock highlights, it is evident that Newgarden did not start and stop on that restart, unlike his teammate claimed after being hit from behind.

Power was in fourth place coming to a restart with nine laps to go when Alexander Rossi rear-ended him. Power faulted teammate Newgarden for getting in and out of the gas while rounding Turn 4 to prepare for the restart.

“I don’t know why — I do not know why — he would just keep backing up and going, not going,” said Power, who ended up 18th and fell to fourth in the points race. “I do not understand it.”

Asked who was at fault, Power replied, “The leader. Whoever was leading.”

He continued, “Where are you supposed to go? In between (turn) three and four, you’re just waiting then he went he stopped he went he stopped and I knew that was going to happen.

“As soon as I checked up because he checked up again, I knew I was going to get pounded.

“Man, disappointing. I had such a good car. We just get to the last 10 of the last two races and have bad luck.

“We’ll keep fighting and see if we can get the Verizon Chevy up there.

“That’s pretty tough now from here but I don’t know why, I do not know why they just keep backing up and not going. I do not understand it. Anyway.”

Newgarden admitted he “was trying to go as late as I could” but insisted it was within the rules and consistent with other restarts across his career.

“The last thing I’m trying to do is cause a wreck,” Newgarden said, suggesting race control may have hit the green light a moment before he actually accelerated. “Believe me, the last thing I want is for Will to get hit.”

There were 676 on-track passes in the race that started in daylight and finished under the lights after the 15-minute red flag.  254 of the passes were for position.  There were also a record 21 lead changes.

Pato O’Ward, who entered the race in fifth place in the points standings, went to the garage after 42 laps with apparent engine trouble. O’Ward had been the runner-up in four of last five races at the track, with five straight top-five finishes.

“It’s been a year of ups and downs, and I think at this point we just want to be winning races. There’s four to go, so there’s plenty of points on the table,” said O’Ward, who finished in 26th and only ahead of Katherine Legge, who crashed on Lap 8 when she made contact with another competitor.

“It wasn’t a significant hit but just enough to put us out of the race,” said Legge. “I was on the bottom trying to get by Ed Carpenter who was struggling. Unfortunately, we made contact and that was the end of the race for us. It’s unfortunate because our e.l.f. Cosmetics Honda was strong.”

Power takes out Malukas

Late in the race drama occurred between the Penske drivers as McLaughlin and Newgarden realized they’d need a stop to make it to the end, and Power and Malukas were so fast after their stops that they had the chance to negate their deficit on the road.

With 20 laps to go, Meyer Shank Racing’s David Malukas went to overtake Power on the inside for fourth place in Turn 1, gave Power plenty of room on the outside, but Power came down on Malukas to squeeze him, the two had contact that sent the No. 66 into the wall.

Malukas could not avoid the contact as he was already on the curb on the inside and could not go down any further. It was Power that came down on Malukas and the two cars touched.

Malukas has finished on the podium in both his Gateway starts and was choking back tears after the incident.

Josef Newgarden

Josef Newgarden Photo courtesy of Penske Entertainment/Joe Skibinski
Josef Newgarden             Photo courtesy of Penske Entertainment/Joe Skibinski

Newgarden was asked about his restart on lap 251, which brought out the red flag after  three cars collected each other and another car spun out of the race.

“It was definitely late. I was trying to go as late as I could, which is not — sometimes people go really early, sometimes they go in the middle, sometimes they go kind of late, and sometimes they go really late.”

“It’s not that different of a restart I’ve done before. I’ve done a lot of restarts from the front. It’s not that different from other restarts that have gone late. I don’t know that I’d change much. If anyone, especially on our team, wants to look at the data, you’re going to see a very consistent speed.”

“What it looked like to me, when he stopped on the red, I saw the replay, what looked like happened is it went green momentarily before I went, just momentarily. I’m talking like half a second or a second.”

“If there’s just a slight miscue there, I think people are very on edge on these restarts trying to get the run. It looked like it was miss-timed in the back, at least with one individual, and that caused a problem.”

“The team needed this. They’ve done a great job on the No. 2 PPG Chevy specifically, they’ve done a really good job. They’ve given me race-winning cars throughout the year, even past Indy, but they haven’t materialized. It’s nice to get another one on the board.

“The worst part about that is obviously the No. 12 car not making it home. I hate that happened at the very end.

“It was a little difficult at the start,” McLaughlin said. “I definitely don’t think I was the best car by any means. But once the race started coming to us, I really thought we had a really good chance there. I mean the last yellow was good for us, and then all the kerfuffle at the end. Ultimately, it was just nice to bring home really good points, and we’ll just keep this momentum rolling.”

“But this team did an amazing job.  We’ve had fast cars right from the start. I’m just proud to have the PPG car back in Victory Lane with Team Chevy.”

Up Next

The final road course race of the season is Sunday, Aug. 25, in Portland, Oregon. Palou won last year to wrap up his second series championship in the past three years.

Foster wins Indy NXT race

In the INDY NXT by Firestone development series, Andretti Global driver Louis Foster continued his dominant march toward the championship with his series-best sixth victory coming in Saturday’s OUTFRONT Showdown.

Foster led all 75 laps and cruised to a 3.34-second victory over Jacob Abel of Abel Motorsports for his sixth win in the last eight races. He now holds a 91-point advantage over Abel with three races remaining. The runner-up finish by Abel was his eighth podium of the season. Abel’s teammate Yuven Sundaramoorthy rounded out the top three with his first career podium finish.

Salvador de Alba Jr. of Andretti Cape INDY NXT finished fourth and Callum Hedge of HMD Motorsports took fifth.

2024 Bommarito 500 Results

Pos No Name Laps Behind Gap Led ST Engine Points Team
1 2 Josef Newgarden 260 0.000s 0.000s 17 3 Chevy 317 Team Penske
2 3 Scott McLaughlin 260 1.7260s 1.7260 67 1 Chevy 370 Team Penske
3 8 Linus Lundqvist 260 3.7875 2.0615 1 18 Honda 209 Chip Ganassi Racing
4 10 Alex Palou 260 6.0516 0.7870 0 16 Honda 441 Chip Ganassi Racing
5 26 Colton Herta* 260 5.2646 1.4771 0 25 Honda 386 Andretti Global w/Curb Agajanian
6 60 Felix Rosenqvist 259 1 LAPS 1 LAPS 0 11 Honda 249 Meyer Shank Racing
7 6 Nolan Siegel 259 1 LAPS 1.8655 8 20 Chevy 105 Arrow McLaren
8 11 Marcus Armstrong 259 1 LAPS 1.9125 0 10 Honda 227 Chip Ganassi Racing
9 41 Sting Ray Robb 259 1 LAPS 0.3995 8 24 Chevy 144 AJ Foyt Enterprises
10 21 Rinus VeeKay 259 1 LAPS 1.0234 0 12 Chevy 221 Ed Carpenter Racing
11 9 Scott Dixon 258 2 LAPS 22.3242 5 19 Honda 378 Chip Ganassi Racing
12 14 Santino Ferrucci 258 2 LAPS 0.4308 0 17 Chevy 249 AJ Foyt Enterprises
13 78 Conor Daly 258 2 LAPS 4.5988 0 9 Chevy 43 Juncos Hollinger Racing
14 30 Pietro Fittipaldi 258 2 LAPS 2.8900 0 15 Honda 151 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
15 45 Christian Lundgaard 257 3 LAPS 22.4382 0 23 Honda 244 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
16 77 Romain Grosjean 256 4 LAPS 1 LAPS 0 6 Chevy 213 Juncos Hollinger Racing
17 20 Ed Carpenter 252 8 LAPS 4 LAPS 0 21 Chevy 45 Ed Carpenter Racing
18 12 Will Power 250 Contact 0.5985 117 4 Chevy 377 Team Penske
19 7 Alexander Rossi 250 Contact 0.7316 8 13 Chevy 277 Arrow McLaren
20 18 Jack Harvey 249 Contact 0.1955 0 26 Honda 90 Dale Coyne Racing
21 66 David Malukas 238 Contact 0.0554 11 2 Honda 92 Meyer Shank Racing
22 27 Kyle Kirkwood 207 In Pit 27 LAPS 0 5 Honda 322 Andretti Global
23 15 Graham Rahal 161 Mechanical 5 LAPS 5 14 Honda 205 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
24 28 Marcus Ericsson 151 Mechanical 7 LAPS 13 7 Honda 229 Andretti Global
25 4 Kyffin Simpson 84 Contact 1.8526 0 22 Honda 138 Chip Ganassi Racing
26 5 Pato O’Ward 42 Mechanical 3 LAPS 0 8 Chevy 345 Arrow McLaren
27 51 Katherine Legge 7 Contact 0.1136 0 27 Honda 39 Dale Coyne Racing

*Herta was penalized for blocking on the final restart and moved from 4th to 5th after the finish

Race Statistics
Winner’s average speed: 136.870 mph
Time of Race: 02:22:28.2772
Margin of victory: 1.7260 seconds
Cautions: 6 for 49 laps
Lead changes: 21 among 11 drivers

Lap Leaders:
McLaughlin, Scott 1 – 15
Malukas, David 16 – 26
Power, Will 27 – 60
McLaughlin, Scott 61
Siegel, Nolan 62 – 66
Rossi, Alexander 67 – 68
Lundqvist, Linus 69
Rahal, Graham 70 – 74
Power, Will 75 – 118
McLaughlin, Scott 119 – 120
Rossi, Alexander 121 – 126
Ericsson, Marcus 127 – 138
Dixon, Scott 139 – 143
Siegel, Nolan 144 – 146
Ericsson, Marcus 147
Power, Will 148 – 168
McLaughlin, Scott 169 – 170
Robb, Sting Ray 171 – 178
McLaughlin, Scott 179 – 199
Power, Will 200 – 217
McLaughlin, Scott 218 – 243
Newgarden, Josef 244 – 260

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings:
Palou 443, Herta 384, Dixon 378, Power 377, McLaughlin 370, O’Ward 345, Kirkwood 322, Newgarden 317, Rossi 277, Ferrucci 249, Rosenqvist 249, Lundgaard 244, Ericsson 229, Armstrong 227, VeeKay 221, Grosjean 213, Lundqvist 209, Rahal 205, Fittipaldi 151, Robb 144, Simpson 138, Siegel 115, Rasmussen 109, Canapino 109, Malukas 92, Pourchaire 91, Harvey 90, Blomqvist 46, Carpenter 45, Daly 43, Ilott 39, Sowery 32, Siegel 29, Legge 29, Ghiotto 27, Castroneves 26, Larson 21, Sato 19, Vautier 12, Braun 10, Hunter-Reay 6, McElrea 6, Andretti 5