Power enthusiastically celebrated on the pit lane after securing his first victory in two years. The NTT IndyCar Series held its race at the historic Road America circuit over the weekend, and Team Penske dominated the podium.
Although there were some cautious periods in the beginning that slowed down the action, the rest of the race was incident-free and there was little variation in pit stop strategies.
Once the initial round of pit stops was completed, it was clear that Team Penske would occupy the top positions. In fact, they ended up filling the entire podium.
Leading the trio was Will Power, who finally ended his winless podium streak. The veteran driver’s last victory was in 2022, and since then he had achieved an impressive 13 podium finishes without another win. However, that streak was broken on Sunday with a commanding victory that propelled Power to the top of the championship standings.
Josef Newgarden crossed the finish line in second place, just over three seconds behind his teammate. Despite driving his backup car due to a dramatic crash in qualifying, the recent Indianapolis 500 winner proved he was more than capable.
Newgarden attributed his second place to a well-executed pit stop strategy, but acknowledged that all Team Penske cars were performing exceptionally well.
Rounding out the podium was Scott McLaughlin, who delivered a solid performance and secured his second podium of the season. This achievement also marked the first time since Sonoma 2017 that Team Penske swept the entire podium.
Alex Palou and Kyle Kirkwood finished in fourth and fifth place respectively, giving Honda their own reasons to be proud of the weekend’s results.
Unfortunately, rookie Linus Lundqvist, who started on pole position, had his brief lead cut short. His teammate Marcus Armstrong collided with him at Turn 1, causing both cars to spin in front of the pack. Colton Herta also got involved in the incident by slowing down to avoid the crash.
Armstrong received a penalty for causing the collision, but the races of all three drivers were severely affected even before completing a lap.
Lundqvist managed to recover and finished in 12th place, while Herta impressively climbed up to sixth position. However, both drivers couldn’t help but wonder what could have been.
Newgarden also got involved in the incident, making contact with Herta, but did not receive a penalty and was not significantly affected by the incident.
Scott Dixon had a great chance to be at the front of the pack, but his team’s decision to extend his final pit stop did not work out. Without late cautions to bunch up the pack, Dixon had to make an extra pit stop for fuel in the final laps, finishing in 21st place.
After five consecutive weeks on track, the drivers and teams will finally have a week to rest and recover. Next, they will gather for the next race at Laguna Seca on June 23rd.
