Iowa brings an up-and-down ride to Team Penske

Sunday at Iowa Speedway must have felt like June’s World Wide Technologies Raceway race all over again for Team Penske. Its Chevy-powered trio of Josef Newgarden, Will Power and Scott McLaughlin had the speed to fill the WWTR podium, but misfortune knocked each driver out of a winnable race to leave them 24th, 25th, and 27th at the checkered flag.

Iowa race two also had a strong resemblance to last Sunday at Mid-Ohio where Newgarden crashed seconds after the green flag, Power had an engine failure and McLaughlin had a tire come apart to leave them 23rd, 26th and 27th.

Newgarden was the only Penske driver to reach the finish line on Sunday to close the Iowa doubleheader, and akin to Saturday’s race where he dominated by leading 242 laps of the 275-lap contest and lost to Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, his all-conquering race two pace was neutralized by two cautions that turned his leads into a second consecutive loss. Power was able to finish third behind Newgarden in race one, but another engine issue ended his race. He went into Mid-Ohio holding seventh in the championship – top driver for Penske – with a 197-point gap to the leader, but with the pair of motor problems in a seven-day span, he’s dropped to eighth, 271 points back from Alex Palou, and was officially eliminated from title contention. 

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“It was an engine issue during the race and made the decision to retire the car as a precaution to avoid further damage,” said Chevrolet Motorsports IndyCar program manager Andrew Schutter. “We’ll conduct a full inspection to better understand the cause and see what we can learn moving forward.”

Despite the two failures in the last three races, Power remains the highest-placed Penske driver in the championship. Teammate McLaughlin had the feel-good story of Saturday after delivering an epic performance to haul the No. 3 Chevy from 27th and last to fourth. He didn’t get the chance to repeat the feat after Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Devlin DeFrancesco spun on his own to start the race and clipped McLaughlin as he was trying to avoid the incident.

Left 26th in the results, he’s fallen to 12th in the standings after being as high as eighth leaving Road America.

Newgarden, in a rare change, wasn’t saddled with terrible finishes and left Iowa with a season-best second in race one and 10th in race two as his teammates departed in 24th and 26th, respectively.

If there was a positive to come from the trip to Iowa, it was Newgarden’s solid points haul which saw him improve from 19th in the championship to 14th. Team-wide, the negatives were obvious as the trio added to an implausible tally where they’ve combined to finish 24th or worse 12 times in 12 races.

“We just have to keep doing what you are doing," Newgarden said. "Team Penske is working incredibly hard – the whole group. Yesterday was a good day for everybody. You could see the spirits lift. They don't need to change what they are doing. They are doing a great job. They brought a fast car here again today. We just keep doing the same thing."