Team Penske and their Chevrolet power were dominant at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio with Will Power and Josef Newgarden starting the race in first and second. Penske is known to let their drivers race, so it came as a surprise to no one when Newgarden began to attack Power for first position on lap 13. After setting up a crafty dummy move, Newgarden shot down the inside of Power heading into turn 5, taking the lead. Newgarden held the lead for the remainder of the race, bringing home the win for Team Penske and Chevrolet. In addition to taking the win, Newgarden lept into first in the championship points standings, placing himself first overall and further validating his championship challenge.
Further down the grid, drama ensued between Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay, teammates at Andretti Autosport, when an outside move by Rossi squeezed Hunter-Reay too close to the curb of turn 4 causing him to lose control of his car. There was no penalty given for the altercation much to Hunter-Reay’s disapproval.
Behind Newgarden, Power would take second position for Team Penske. Graham Rahal of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing put in an admirable drive, passing Indy 500 Champion Takuma Sato for third going into turn two. Rahal held on to the final podium position for the remainder of the race. Fourth belonged to reigning IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud, landing him three positions ahead of where he started. Sato ended up two positions behind his qualifying position in fifth. Rossi ultimately made up three positions landing in a controversial sixth place. While only placing seventh, Castroneves landed all of the points he needed to relegate Scott Dixon to third in the championship points standings while remaining second in the standings himself. In a decent recovery drive, Hunter-Reay proved his race pace by cutting through the field up to eighth place. While aiming to hold onto his championship lead, Dixon could only hope to mitigate the damage with a ninth place finish. Conor Daly of A.J. Foyt Enterprises rounded out the top ten.
The next IndyCar race is the ABC Supply 500 on August 20, at Pocono Raceway.
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