JUNE 23, 2021
Sunday, June 20, 2021 at 04:53PM
(Photo by by Chris Owens/INDYCAR)
Alex Palou (No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing NTT DATA Honda) passed Josef Newgarden (No. 2 Team Penske Hitachi Chevrolet) with two laps remaining Sunday to win the REV Group Grand Prix presented by AMR at Road America and regained the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship lead. Palou crossed the finish line 1.9106-seconds ahead of Colton Herta (No. 26 Andretti Autosport Gainbridge Honda). 2014 series champion Will Power finished third in the No. 12 Team Penske Verizon 5G Chevrolet. Palou, who led five of the 55 laps after starting fifth, averaged 119.424 mph in a race slowed by four full-course caution periods. “It always feels awesome even if it's your lucky day or just because you have really good pace,” Palou said. “We've been close. Indy road course, Detroit, Indy 500, and today I was like, ‘Oh, no, we need to get that win.’ A win is a win. It's always the best thing.” Palou took a 28-point lead over Pato O’Ward in the series standings with his second victory of the season. O’Ward, who led Palou by one point as the series leader entering this race, finished ninth in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet. Spaniard Palou became the first Chip Ganassi Racing driver other than six-time series champion Scott Dixon to earn at least two victories in a season since Dario Franchitti in 2011. Palou also kept Chip Ganassi Racing spotless at Road America over the last two seasons, as Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist swept the doubleheader here last summer for the team. Power returned to the podium for the first time since finishing second in the season opener at Barber, but this was the second straight heartbreaking result for his Team Penske teammate Newgarden. NTT P1 Award winner Newgarden led a race-high 32 laps and looked to be poised for his and Team Penske’s first victory of the season on a restart at the end of Lap 53. But Newgarden’s car suffered a gearbox issue when the green flag flew, and Palou blew past him on the outside before Turn 1 on Lap 54 for a lead he wouldn’t surrender. Meanwhile, Newgarden limped the final two trips around the 14-turn, 4.048-mile circuit with his compromised car and ended up a disappointing 21st as the last car on the lead lap. It was the second straight Sunday of despair for Newgarden, who was passed by O’Ward for the lead with three laps remaining in Race 2 of the Chevrolet Dual at Detroit and ended up finishing second at Belle Isle after leading 67 of 70 laps. “Down the front straightaway, as soon as I got to fifth gear, I tried to shift to sixth, and it didn’t take the selection, so I was stuck in fifth,” Newgarden said. “I was trying to get it up to sixth gear, and it wouldn’t go. Then I got stuck in fifth in Turn 1. I finally got it to go down, and I just could not get it to upshift after that. I got it to first, essentially, and tried to stay out of the way. I’m not sure what happened. Disappointing for all of us. I knew we had a great car all day.” “I don’t know what the luck (is) with our team right now, but with Josef to have a gearbox issue on the last bloody lap, almost the race won, like we were in Detroit, it’s just heartbreaking,” Power said. “I couldn’t believe it when he was pulling off to the side.” Newgarden was running second, about seventh-tenths of a second ahead of third-place Palou, when leader Oliver Askew – on a different fuel strategy – pitted from the lead in the No. 21 Direct Supply Chevrolet on Lap 51. But Newgarden’s gap to Palou was erased on the same lap when Ed Jones spun in Canada Corner after the left rear tire on his No. 18 SealMaster Honda appeared to deflate. That triggered the last full-course caution, setting up the final restart duel between Newgarden and Palou that never materialized due to Newgarden’s technical problem. There were seven different leaders and 11 lead changes, mainly due to daring fuel strategies from teams lacking the pace of the frontrunners. But the dramatic finish was the culmination of a no-holds-barred race that featured ferocious battles for position throughout the field, with cars hip-checking each other and kicking up plumes of dirt off course during the duels. Next up is the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on Sunday, July 4, at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course near Columbus, Ohio. Live coverage starts at noon (ET) on NBC and the INDYCAR Radio Network. (Thank you to INDYCAR Media)
(Photo by Joe Skibinski/INDYCAR)
Colton Herta (No. 26 Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian Gainbridge Honda) finished second at Road America on Sunday.
(Photo by Joe Skibinski/INDYCAR)
Will Power delivered a podium finish for Team Penske at Road America.
(Photo by Joe Skibinski/INDYCAR)
Josef Newgarden dominated the weekend at Road America in the No. 2 Team Penske Hitachi Chevrolet, right up until he encountered gearbox problems with two laps to go. Painful.
In one of the most sensational comeback stories in sports in recent years, Marc Marquez (No. 93 Repsol Honda Team) scored a thrilling victory in the Liqui Moly Grand Prix Deutschland at the Sachsenring on Sunday, 581 days since his last win. Miguel Oliveira (No. 88 Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) fought his way through to challenge Marquez but had to settle for second, while Championship leader Fabio Quartararo (No. 20 Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) took a solid and crucial third. Watch video highlights here. (Thank you to MotoGP Media)
(REUTERS/Yves Herman)
Max Verstappen (No. 33 Red Bull Racing Honda) passed Lewis Hamilton (No. 44 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team) on the penultimate lap to win the French Grand Prix. Verstappen stopped one more time than his rival after the Red Bull team rolled the tactical dice and outfoxed their Mercedes rivals. Sergio Pérez (No. 11 Red Bull Racing Honda) fought his way past Valterri Bottas (No. 77 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team) to take third place. Watch the race highlights here . (Thank you to Phil Duncan/The Telegraph)
Kyle Larson (No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet) continued his hot streak Sunday afternoon, winning the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway — his third consecutive win. It’s a high performance mark the series hasn’t seen in more than a decade since Jimmie Johnson won four straight points-paying races in 2007. Larson’s win Sunday was his third straight points-paying victory, but he also won the All-Star Race $1 million-to-win exhibition last week at Texas Motor Speedway. Larson finished 4.335 seconds ahead of Ross Chastain (No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet), leading the field by as much as five seconds in the final 10 laps. And his fourth winner’s trophy is a series best on the season. “It was a great day,” Larson said, smiling at the understatement. “We never really had to run behind people, so I don’t know if one of my teammates got out front again, it probably would have been hard to pass them. This Valvoline Chevrolet was really good. It cut the middle of the corner really well and our pit crew did an awesome job again. I just hope we can keep it going.” Larson led 264 of the 300 laps at the 1.333-mile Nashville track in the first NASCAR Cup Series race in the city since 1984. The effort marked the fourth time this season Larson has led at least 200 laps in a race and the fifth time he has led more than half the total laps in a race. William Byron (No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet) was third. Watch highlights here. (Thank you to Holly Cain/NASCAR Wire Service)
