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| IndyCar's first night race of 2020 takes place tonight at Iowa |
Colton Herta heads into Iowa on the back of seven consecutive finishes, a career-high for the second-generation driver. Prior to this Herta's most consecutive finishes was three, the first three races of his career and he had retired from seven of his previous 12 starts. Herta finds himself second in the championship, matching his career best championship position, which came after his victory at Austin last year. He has been in the top five of the championship for the last three races after spending only two races in the top five all of last season.
Simon Pagenaud was outside the top ten in both Road America races and he dropped to fourth in the championship. Pagenaud has not had three consecutive finishes outside the top ten since 2015 at the second Belle Isle race, Texas and Toronto. This is the 11th time in his career he has had consecutive finishes outside the top ten. He ended five of those previous ten slumps with top five finishes, but he has never ended one of those streaks with a victory.
Patricio O'Ward scored his first podium finish at Road America, crossing the finish in second after a stellar race saw him lead 43 laps from pole position only to lose the lead with a lap and a half to go. O'Ward could become the first driver to pick up a first career victory after finishing runner-up in the race before since Robert Doornbos finished second at Cleveland and followed it up with a victory at Mont-Tremblant. The last driver to finish in the top five in the start before a first career victory was Graham Rahal, who was fourth in the 2007 Champ Car finale at Mexico City before winning his first start of 2008 at St. Petersburg.
Josef Newgarden looks to match Ryan Hunter-Reay's record for Iowa victories and Newgarden could possibly take the record for his own this weekend. If Newgarden swept the weekend he would become the first driver to win three consecutive Iowa races and he would be the first driver to win three consecutive races at a track since Will Power won the first three São Paulo races from 2010 to 2012.
Marcus Ericsson is on the best run of form in his IndyCar career. With three consecutive top ten finishes, Ericsson has jumped to sixth in the championship, another best for him. His only top ten finish on an oval last year was seventh at Texas. His next finish oval finish was 11th at Iowa.
Will Power was a race winner the last time IndyCar ran a doubleheader on an oval. Power won the second race of the Twin 275s at Texas Motor Speedway on June 11, 2011. He started third in both races and he finished third in the first race. Power is one of nine drivers entered for Iowa who competed in the Twin 275s. The other drivers are Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Takuma Sato, Ed Carpenter, Charlie Kimball and Graham Rahal.
Felix Rosenqvist looks to continue the streak rolling and pick up career victory number two in as many races. A.J. Allmendinger was the last driver to pick up his two victories in consecutive races. Allmendinger's first three victories came on the bounce at Portland, Cleveland and Toronto in 2006. Rosenqvist's only consecutive top five finishes was in the final two races of 2019 with second in Portland and fifth at Laguna Seca.
Graham Rahal has picked up a top ten finish in the fifth race of the season the last five years, but Rahal's finishing position had declined each year. It started with a runner-up result in the 2014 Grand Prix of Indianapolis. He followed it with finishes of fourth, sixth, ninth and ninth and all those results were in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Dale Coyne Racing has picked up a best finish for the team at Road America when Álex Palou finished third in race one. Santino Ferrucci matched DCR's previous best Road America finish in each race with sixth place finishes. Last year, Coyne got its best Iowa finish when Sébastien Bourdais finished ninth. Before that, DCR's only top ten finish at the track was with Justin Wilson finishing tenth in 2012.
Ryan Hunter-Reay is outside the top ten in the championship for the first time since his engine failure in the 2019 season opener at St. Petersburg. He had been in the top ten of the championship after 38 of the previous 39 races before being eliminated in turn one at Road America. It was the third time Hunter-Reay failed to complete a lap in his career. The other two times were 2009 at Watkins Glen and 2011 at Milwaukee.
Zach Veach was seventh at Iowa last year, his best finish of the 2019 season. The only track where Veach has multiple top ten finishes is Belle Isle, where he finished eighth in both races last year. He has finished outside the top ten in his last three races and in each of his first two IndyCar seasons he has had at least one stretch with five finishes outside the top ten.
Rinus VeeKay makes his first appearance at Iowa since 2017 in U.S. F2000. That was VeeKay's first oval race. In his Road to Indy career, he made five oval starts, finished on the podium in four of them and his worst result was fourth.
Similar to VeeKay, Oliver Askew made five oval starts in the Road to Indy with his first coming in U.S. F2000 at Iowa three years ago. Askew won that race and he won both his oval starts last year in Indy Lights. His other two finishes were sixth and fifth in the 2018 Pro Mazda season.
Charlie Kimball has finished tenth twice at Iowa, both coming when Kimball has started in the top ten, his only top ten starts. His next best starting position is 14th. He has only one lead lap finish at this track. That came in 2014.
Another driver with only one lead lap finish at Iowa is Takuma Sato. Sato completed all 300 laps in 2018 when he finished third. That is his only top ten finish at the track despite starting in the top ten in half his starts. He has retired from six starts.
Conor Daly has an average finish of 17.7 in three starts at Iowa. The only tracks where Daly's average finish is worse are Road America, Barber, Portland, Laguna Seca and Indianapolis. He has finished on the lead lap in his last three oval starts after having only three lead lap finishes in his previous 17 oval starts.
Alexander Rossi matched his career best Iowa finish last year when he finished sixth from sixth on the grid and it was Rossi's first lead lap finish on the track. He has only led four laps in his career at Iowa, all coming in his first start in 2016. Iowa is the only track Rossi has multiple starts at and does not have a top five finish.
Jack Harvey's only time at Iowa was in 2015 in Indy Lights. Harvey qualified third behind the Carlin drivers of Max Chilton and Ed Jones. Chilton and Jones were the top two finishers with R.C. Enerson in third and Kyle Kaiser in fourth. Harvey dropped to fifth. This is the first short oval in Harvey's IndyCar career.
Tonight's race is the first IndyCar race on a Friday since the 1969 Indianapolis 500 when Mario Andretti scored his one and only Indianapolis 500 victory. Marco Andretti enters having not won in his last 147 starts with Andretti's most recent victory coming at Iowa over nine years ago. He has not had a top ten finish in his last four Iowa starts. This is the first time Andretti has started a season without a top ten finish in one of the first four races.
Ed Carpenter and Tony Kanaan are back for their second starts of 2020. Both drivers scored a top ten result in the Texas season opener. Carpenter has finished in the top five in his last two starts. It is the first time he has ever had consecutive top five finishes in his career. In 12 Iowa starts, he has only two top five finishes and he has finished outside the top ten in three of his last four appearances at the track. Kanaan has eight top ten finishes in his last ten Iowa starts. He enters this weekend with top ten finishes in his last four oval starts.
IndyCar will practice at 2:00 p.m. ET with qualifying scheduled for 5:30 p.m. ET. The first lap of qualifying for each car will set the grid for tonight's race. The second lap will set the field for tomorrow night's race.
NBCSN's coverage of the first Iowa 250 begins at 8:30 p.m. ET with the green flag scheduled for 9:15 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 250 laps.
