On a night where eight drivers retired, including two of the top three in the championship, Newgarden picked the most opportune time to lead 138 laps and take his second victory of the season. The entire Team Penske organization looked strong from the start of the day in practice, but Newgarden has a feel for these races. He stayed in the top three for most of this race and used strategy to get to the lead. He was able to go a lap or two longer each stint and emerge from the pit lane in the lead.
It helped Newgarden that Colton Herta broke a driveshaft while leading a little more than 71% into the race and Alexander Rossi hit the wall after 200 laps. But once in the lead, no one could overpower Newgarden. It is Newgarden's 20th career victory, and he is the 22nd driver to reach that milestone. As for the championship, Newgarden is in the fight. With three races to go and only 22 points behind off the top spot, Newgarden has the most momentum heading into the final three races.
2. While Newgarden leaves Gateway the race winner, Patricio O'Ward ended up second on the road, but with Álex Palou and Scott Dixon both taken out on lap 65, O'Ward's runner-up night gives the championship lead back to O'Ward. It was a 31-points swing in the championship and O'Ward exits Gateway up ten points on Palou.
Once the Ganassi drivers were out, the championship was O'Ward's for the taking if he made smart decisions and kept the car on the track. O'Ward doesn't make many mistakes and he paced himself. The Andretti cars fell out and gave O'Ward another two spots. If O'Ward had finished fourth, it would only be a two-point lead, but it still would have pushed O'Ward in the right direction.
O'Ward finishes the season as the top oval driver. To finish as champion, he will need his best three road and street course races.
3. Team Penske had its best race of the season and it deserved two cars on the podium. Will Power started on pole position, his first of the season, and he didn't dominate, but he ran in the top five all race. We haven't seen many races where multiple Team Penske cars are consistently in the top five for an entire race. This season has seen one car have it and the other three not really be there. I am sure Power wishes he led more and was the one out on top, but after how the first 11 races went, the last two should make him happy.
4. Scott McLaughlin can breathe easy, as he finished fourth and the drought is over. McLaughlin has the ovals down pat. Every oval he is excited and up for it. I am not saying the opposite is true for road and street courses, but those have been more work for him. At times he has shown speed on them, but it doesn't work out. However, there were races where he is fighting from behind. I think he will get there. This is year one. We have to remember that. Exiting 2021 knowing he is comfortable with ovals is a great thing.
5. God bless Sébastien Bourdais. Bourdais did get run over tonight and he got a top five finish, his second of the season. Bourdais went off strategy from the start. He stopped under caution on lap 18 and it broke him away from the field. He always stopped with a clear pit lane and the final caution for Rossi's accident might have saved Bourdais. Instead of making his final stop under green and maybe sneaking out a top ten, Bourdais could stop under yellow and got to keep a top five position. Good for him.
6. Takuma Sato went off strategy as well, but his was a little perplexing. Sato was stopping a few laps before the window to make it on three stops. His third stop was around lap 185, about ten laps before the three-stop window opened. When the Rossi caution came out, I thought Sato might hope the cautions would save him and he could steal another one at Gateway. Instead, Sato took fuel to ensure a top ten finish and he got sixth. Sato wasn't great in this one, but he survived the attrition and strategy was in his favor.
7. I wish this race had gone green to the end because Ryan Hunter-Reay was most committed to the four-stop strategy. He stopped well outside the window and was set up for his final stop to either be right as the window opened with about 60 laps to go or Hunter-Reay could have run long and stop with about 30 laps to go and then had a sprint to the finish on fresh tires. I would have loved to see Hunter-Reay gone long and used fresh tires to his advantage late. With that said, I think he still would have ended up seventh. Maybe he would have been sixth. It is still a good result for Hunter-Reay.
8. Simon Pagenaud broke his wing on an early restart after contact with Newgarden. It set him back and he lost a lap. Fortunately, the cautions cycled Pagenaud back on the lead lap. He was stuck in the middle of the field all race, but he made up ground and finished eighth. All four Penske cars were in the top ten for the first time this season.
9. Marcus Ericsson really left something on the table tonight. Ericsson finished ninth, but this could have been a chance for him to take more points out of the championship lead. He started sixth and ran around the top five for most of this race. He did get caught out a little by the late caution. That probably cost him at least three spots. I am not sure McLaughlin, Bourdais and Sato would have finished ahead of Ericsson without that caution. Ericsson is 60 points back in fifth. Not bad, but if he had finished sixth, he is 54 points back. He is in it, but to really be in it, he needed to finish better than ninth.
10. Jack Harvey rounded out the top ten! I cannot say much more about his night. Harvey was quiet and he got another top ten result. For all the top ten results he lost this season, he can have this one with no complaints.
11. Conor Daly's top ten streak ends at Gateway, but 11th isn't bad. It was a little disappointing he wasn't better, especially after his practice speed. He ended up starting 20th. He wasn't really a top ten threat. If it wasn't for all the attrition, I think he finishes outside the top fifteen.
12. Dalton Kellett was 12th, and yes, nine cars retired, but Kellett was spun from behind before the first restart when Ed Carpenter was a little too excited. It could have been night over there. Kellett did make any other glaring mistakes. He did pinch Romain Grosjean into turn three, which was questionable, but Kellett didn't do anything else stupid. For a portion of the race, a top ten was in order. He earned this 12th-place finish.
13. Thirteenth is disappointing for Tony Kanaan. Kanaan was not a factor in this one. I am not sure if the almost three-month break between starts hurt him, and even Ed Carpenter the only other oval-only driver, but I expect Kanaan would be a little better, arguably a shoo-in for the top ten, especially when nine cars retired. If you told me at the start of today that nine cars would be taken out of this race and Tony Kanaan would not be in any incidents, I would have said Kanaan would have definitely finished in the top ten and maybe even said Kanaan would be in the top five. I am not sure Kanaan spent a lap in the top ten tonight.
14. Romain Grosjean had a great 90 laps in this race. Then he struggled with cold tires, had about 10 shaky laps, and then had another 70 good laps before he repeated the cycle. If it wasn't for his struggles on cold tires, I think Grosjean finishes in the top ten. His handful of laps rebuilding confidence at the start of each stint cost him time and he was trapped a lap down on the Rossi caution. It was a respectable first oval start, but he has to get a better feel with cold tires.
15. James Hinchcliffe had an electrical issue at the start, and he lost three laps immediately. He ended up finishing eight laps down, but I believe he pulled off track once he couldn't make up any more spots.
Let's tackle the rest of the Andretti cars now, because this should have been a night with two Andretti cars on the podium and one of them as the winner. Colton Herta looked great and he was probably better than Newgarden tonight. Herta's driveshaft broke about ten laps before the final pit stop while he was leading. Rossi got in the marbles after his final pit stop while trying to hurry ahead of Newgarden and O'Ward when those two were on cold tires.
These are too many errors. This was another race where Herta and Rossi are at the top of the field, and both come away as the bottom two Andretti cars. Herta couldn't buy a break at this point. Who has a driveshaft break while leading with less than 30% of the race left? And Rossi, I feel like he needs a new strategist. Rossi was one of the first cars to stop every stint and it never got him track position. He was frustrated being told to save fuel and then told to run faster. Rossi was set to save, but then got mixed messages. Every time we see Rossi do something slightly different on pit stops, whether that is stop a lap sooner or stop a lap later, he loses out. That's got to change.
With the number of problems and mistakes, it must be institutional. Andretti Autosport really needs to clean up its act. Herta could have been a championship contender. Rossi still hasn't finished on the podium this season and has only led two laps. I don't think those two have lost it as drivers, both before the age of 30. This is a wasted season.
16. Felix Rosenqvist also had a broken driveshaft and was 16th, ahead of Rossi and Herta.
17. Let's cover the Álex Palou/Scott Dixon/Rinus VeeKay incident. VeeKay got into turn one a little too hot on one restart and clipped Palou, who spun into Dixon. Palou was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it has cost him the championship lead.
But Palou was so positive afterward, I don't think he is unraveling. He is only ten points back with three races to go. Palou can easily get that back in one race. I think he will be fine, but he could not have asked for a worst two-race stretch in August. He was about 18 laps away from leaving Indianapolis last week with a 50-point lead. It flipped in a blink.
For how miserable Dixon's season has been based on Dixon's terms, he is dangerous at 43 points back with three to go. Nothing suggests Dixon is going to catch fire in the final three races, but we aren't going to rule it out.
18. This was VeeKay's third consecutive finish outside the top twenty and five consecutive finish outside the top fifteen. VeeKay just got the restart wrong, and it ruined his night, plus two Ganassi drivers. He has been funky since his broken collarbone, which kept him out of Road America.
Speaking of funky, I am not sure Ed Carpenter should have been out there tonight. Carpenter ran over Kellett coming to a restart. I would have expected Kellett to do that, not Kellett be the victim of such a collision. And then Carpenter lost it all on his own. The oval schedule has not been the most rewarding in recent years, and four races is not a lot, especially when three of those happen in a 30-day span and the final one is nearly three months later. Carpenter is boom or bust when it comes to this schedule. There aren't many booms for him though.
19. Graham Rahal cannot catch a break at Gateway. Of all the drivers to get hit on lap two at Gateway, it just had to be Rahal. For a guy on the hot seat, only completing two laps is not what Ed Jones needed. The accident with Rahal was neither drivers' fault. It was a racing incident, but you need to complete more than two laps and get a finish if you are hoping to retain your ride.
20. For a race where it took an hour and six minutes to complete 100 laps, it turned out to be a good race. If these guys could have just had their heads straight for the first 60 laps, we would have finished this race in two hours and four minutes instead of two hours and 24 minutes.
I write it every year, I wrote it back in May after the accident at the start of the Texas race, IndyCar must revise its start and restart procedure. I will just say the Rahal/Jones incident and Carpenter's spin on his own will happen, but the contact with Newgarden and Pagenaud, which knocked debris onto the racetrack was avoidable. VeeKay was over his skis when he took out the Ganassi drivers. No one should be spinning out another driver coming to the green flag.
IndyCar needs a procedure where the speed consistently builds and does not fluctuate. Everyone should maintain speed to the green flag. It happens too damn often for nothing to be done. The last straw should have broken five years ago, but it didn't. This must be fixed. It does not look good when the first quarter of the race has no rhythm. Once this race got started, it was a lot of fun, but it took over an hour for people to feel confident they were going to see anything worth a damn tonight. IndyCar cannot afford that.
21. Since IndyCar returned to Gateway in 2017, I think this was the best race the track had. We need to keep in mind Gateway will never be passes on every lap and cars side-by-side for 12 consecutive laps and slipstream passes at the end each straightaway. It is a slow burn and if a car gets on a run, then it is great. Grosjean made passes tonight feeling out the air and running a half line higher than the rest. Herta and Rossi were hooked up and could make moves.
It takes time to make passes here and the car must be stuck for a driver to confidently make moves. Tires were falling off at a greater rate than previous Gateway races. Cars could run a little more side-by-side, but it wasn't prolonged side-by-side periods. Hopefully, in the next two years the surface wears down and provides high tire-degradation to a point where everyone will make this a four-stop race because so much time would be lost stretching it to three stops. I can't guarantee that will be the case, but I hope we get to it.
22. It is after midnight, and I had a lot to write after this race. That must mean it was better than average at a minimum. Now we get two weeks off before the three-week stretch to end the season. The championship is up in the air. Portland's return will be worth it.
