Leist dominates Iowa for third win in four races

Rookie Matheus Leist blew the field away on a lap 26 restart to pick up a dominant win in Sunday's Indy Lights Mazda Iowa 100 presented by Cooper Tires. He had checked out by so much, in fact, that when hard-charging Santi Urrutia crossed the finish line in second place, it was the Uruguayan who wound up doing donuts, mistakenly thinking he won.

Pole-sitter Colton Herta led for the first segment of the race until Garth Rickards' Turn 2 spin brought out the race's only caution on lap 23. On the restart, Leist passed second-place Kyle Kaiser on the inside and then chased Herta for the lead on the high side into Turn 3, completing the pass at the start-finish line. The Brazilian jumped out to a more than six-second lead on the way to his third win in the past four races.

"I’m so happy for the team – we needed to make some points today," said Leist, who started 10th in his first appearance at Iowa Speedway. "It was a little tricky in the beginning, on new tires. When I managed to overtake Neil [Alberico] just before the yellow, I found out that the high line was perfect for me. When the race restarted, I ran the high line and everyone else was low so I think I passed three drivers in Turn One. I couldn’t believe everyone stayed on the inside. The car was just so good so I was able to open a gap, save my tires and get the win.

"It is a very difficult championship since everything here is new to me so I am being realistic. We’re in a good position now so if we can keep winning, we can keep fighting.”

Urrutia charged from 11th through to the top five, taking third away from Kaiser on lap 76 while almost making contact. On lap 83 he started a multi-lap side-by-side battle with Dalton Kellett before sliding up out of Turn 4 to take second place, all the while dodging lap traffic. He wound up three seconds back of the winner.

"You know, I just saw the guys running there and I saw that I was quick," Urrutia, who jumped from eighth to fifth in the standings, told IMS Radio. "When I passed [Kellett], because I never saw Leist on the front, so, OK, I'm leading the race, so I slow down a little bit just to save the [tires] and everything. So when I finished the race I came to the front straight and did donuts and everything and my engineer came on the radio and said, 'What are you doing?' I'm celebrating the race, we won. 'No, you didn't win, we finished second.'

"We're struggling a lot and everything, as a team, but we're working, and finish second today is good points. The high line was super good."

Kellett finished third, followed by Herta and Kaiser in fifth. Kaiser now leads Leist by just 13 points and Herta a further 35 points back.

"We started off with a really good car early in the race," Kaiser said. "We were pushing reaI hard in the beginning and I think that's what hurt us so bad at the end. We made up good positions, we were fighting hard, I was carrying a ton of speed. After the restart, the car just didn't have the same amount of grip. I felt the rears starting to go and I was trying to protect it. Once I started running the high line the rear was really stepping out so at that point you have to stick to the low line and lose a lot of ground. I'm glad we brought back fifth from that. The end was really scary; I'm glad I didn't crash."

Indy Lights will return to action this week for a doubleheader Cooper Tires Indy Lights Grand Prix of Toronto Presented by Allied Building Products on July 15/16 at the challenging Toronto street circuit.