Palou Runs Season Win Total To Seven With Iowa Score

NEWTON, Iowa – Iowa Speedway found a way to deny Josef Newgarden once again on Sunday, while Alex Palou continued to carve his way deeper into Indy car history.

Palou took the victory in the Farm To Finish 275 powered by Sukup, earning his seventh NTT IndyCar Series victory of the year and his second career win on an oval after May’s Indianapolis 500.

Putting his stamp on the back half of Iowa’s doubleheader weekend, the Spaniard became the first driver since Al Unser Jr. in 1994 to win seven of the first 12 races in a single season.

Palou’s pursuit of even more legendary status continues too, as he chases the likes of Al Unser and A.J. Foyt for the all-time season record of 10 victories.

Much akin to Saturday’s race, Newgarden’s No. 2 Astemo Chevrolet was the dominant car after working forward from fourth on the grid, taking the lead from Palou on lap 65 after the race’s second caution and commanding the next 64 circuits with no real challenges.

However, two ill-timed single-car incidents immediately after Newgarden’s team elected to pit – on laps 130 and 254, respectively – eliminated the possibility of getting back to the front when it mattered most.

Even with that bit of luck, polesitter Palou maintained a presence up front all race long, leading 194 of 275 laps and dispensing challenges from both Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas along the way.

The last of Sunday’s five cautions, after Andretti Global’s Colton Herta spun and hit the wall in turn three with 22 to go, set up a final shootout between Palou and CGR teammate Scott Dixon with 11 to go.

Palou took charge easily, though, and cruised his way to an 18th career win in just 93 starts by .528 seconds over Dixon in the end.

Now that Palou has crossed a short oval win off his to-do list in open wheel racing, there seems to be little the 28-year-old Spaniard can’t accomplish.

“It’s been an unbelievable day, an unbelievable weekend, but more than anything, an incredible year for us. I cannot really believe it, honestly, and winning here, it’s super special,” Palou said. “I struggled on short ovals for so long. Today, although the strategy helped us a little bit there at the end when we were P3, we’re sealed,” Palou added. “Seven wins in one year, it’s insane.”

Palou extended his lead in the championship standings to 129 points over Pato O’Ward with five races left in the season.

Dixon needed some time to get comfortable with the high line of the Iowa bullring, but after he got up to speed, the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda climbed six spots on the day from eighth starting spot.

The New Zealander and six-time Indy car champion was left wanting one more run after coming up short.

“It was definitely a lot of changes. We weren’t really too sure how it was going to go, obviously; we have an amazing engineering group here and Brad [Goldberge] and everybody did a phenomenal job to basically throw the kitchen sink at it,” Dixon said of his race car. “Yesterday, we were all kind of frustrated about not being able to use the high line, so we tried to fix that, and today it took us a little bit to work it out, but once we did, the car was super fast.

“I think another stint would have been kind of fun; we needed a longer race today.”

The runner-up finish marked Dixon’s 14th top-five at Iowa, a track where he has yet to capture a win.

Meyer Shank Racing’s Marcus Armstrong tied his career-best finish on the final step of the podium, after he had previously called his shot before the race with FOX pit reporter Georgia Henneberry.

“Yeah, we made it happen,” Armstrong noted. “I was confident we were going to have a good day, because last night we were finding our feet towards the end of the race. We’ve been saving fuel for two races now, waiting for a situation like that there at the end.

“I was very happy when I saw that yellow at the end.”

The Christchurch, New Zealand native has seen his recent momentum coming, even back to his first podium with CGR last year on the streets of Detroit.

Sunday marked his second top five and eighth top 10 of the year.

“We’ve just gotten better every single race. I’m jelling with my crew better and better every race, but this championship is so competitive. You need to be on it every single session, every single lap, just like Alex Palou is,” Armstrong added. “So, we’re getting there slowly, but we’re getting there.”

David Malukas ended the day in fourth for A.J. Foyt Racing, and Saturday Iowa victor Pato O’Ward finished fifth in his No. 5 Chevy for Arrow McLaren.

The biggest mover of the race was O’Ward’s teammate Christian Lundgaard, who muscled his way up 16 spots en route to a sixth-place result. Felix Rosenqvist finished seventh.

Christian Rasmussen, rookie Robert Shwartzman, and Newgarden rounded out the top 10.

Fourteen of the 27 cars were on the lead lap through the finish.

In addition to Herta, Callum Ilott, Marcus Ericsson, Sting Ray Robb, Devlin Defrancesco, and Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin all fell victim to crash damage Sunday.

Will Power fell out on lap 21 with a mechanical failure. Factoring in Power and McLaughlin Sunday, Team Penske has 10 total DNFs on the season, the most for the juggernaut team since 2000.

The NTT IndyCar Series heads north to Exhibition Place in Toronto for the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto at a 1.786-mile, 11-turn street circuit.

Broadcast coverage is slated for Sunday, July 20 at noon ET, live on FOX, the IndyCar Radio Network, and SiriusXM IndyCar Nation, channel 218.