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Sunday at Mid-Ohio - The IndyCar race…
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What a fitting tribute to Roger Penske’s 50th anniversary of his team’s first WIN in motorsports it was today as Josef Newgarden for Team Penske finally breaks through for the first WIN in 2021, from pole. Coming in P2 from his P3 start was Chip Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson while P3 went to Chip Ganassi’s Alex Palou, from P7.
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The race started out wild, with two cautions very close together. The first involving Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe for Andretti Autosport, Arrow McLaren SP’s Felix Rosenqvist and Dale Coyne’s Romain Grosjean. All would eventually rejoin the racing, though Ryan and Felix were two laps down.
For the second caution Scott Dixon for Chip Ganassi and Will Power for Team Penske battled for position with Power getting squeezed into a spin. He dramatically spun up his tires trying to get turned around, creating a cloud of smoke that Ed Jones could not see through and the Dale Coyne drive ran into Power, taking both cars out of the race.
For the rest of the race it was a matter of the ebb and flow of luck and strategies, with Newgarden’s closest race rival Colton Herta for Andretti getting the worst of the luck, with two bad pit stops in a row. All the while, Newgarden controlled the race and his gap back to any pursuer. He was only out of the lead in pit stop cycles and was usually about 6 seconds in front. Late in the race, Ericcson was clearly gaining on him, but the Swede ran out of time to make anything happen, and Newgy took the checkers with a 0.879-second gap.
Other drivers were heroic. In a place that in known to be difficult to pass in Pato O’Ward for Arrow McLaren went from P20 to P8, Santino Ferrucci for Rahal Letterman Lanigan went from P22 to P9, Takuma Sato, also for RLL, from P19 to P10 and Romain Grosjean went from P18 to P7 - and none got there by the trick of an ill-timed full-course caution.
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Notable:
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Newgarden earned his 19th career victory on the same weekend that Team Penske is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first IndyCar series WIN, by Mark Donohue on July 3, 1971 at Pocono Raceway.
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Ericsson earned his seventh TOP TEN finish of the season and it jumped him 3 positions in the points battle.
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Mr. Mid-Ohio, Scott Dixon, had an unremarkable day, starting 5th and finishing 4th. He said the car was loose all day long and he just got the best out of it he could. He maintains 3rd in the points.
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Here are the race highlights:
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Your happy podium - That’s Marcus Ericsson on the left in P2, Josef Newgarden in the middle in P1 and Alex Palou in P3 on the right:
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With this result, here are the TOP FIVE in points, leaving Mid-Ohio:
1 - Alex Palou, 384
2 - Pato O’Ward, 345
3 - Scott Dixon, 328
4 - Josef Newgarden, 315
5 - Marcus Ericsson, 280
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The next IndyCar race is the inaugural Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on Sunday, August 8 on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. Between now and then, broadcast partner NBC will be very busy with the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Next up, the Stadium Super Trucks close out the Mid-Ohio race weekend with Race 2…
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