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Mid-Ohio IndyCar: Penske's Josef Newgarden dominates

Penske's Josef Newgarden took the IndyCar championship lead with a dominant victory at Mid-Ohio, his second straight win

Newgarden, who had never previously won at the circuit, shadowed team-mate Will Power for much of the opening laps before Power - who had started on pole position - found himself blindsided by Newgarden's dive down the inside.

The move, at the end of the back straight, took place on lap 13 of 90 and from that point on the Toronto race winner had no competition as he took back-to-back victories.

In the final third of the race the only caution of the day, to recover a stalled Ed Jones, allowed Power to close back up on his team-mate but the lead pair were split by the lapped Esteban Gutierrez.

As the race restarted, Gutierrez refused to give way and even tried to dive up the inside of Newgarden at Turn 4.

That allowed the leader to pull away and claim victory by more than five seconds as Power struggled to find a way past the Dale Coyne Racing driver.

Power did have to keep an eye on his mirrors though as Graham Rahal, who took third place off Takuma Sato on lap 15, tried to get up to second place with increasingly bold moves.

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan racer didn't have sufficient Push to Pass in reserve to get enough of a run on Power to claim the position.

Simon Pagenaud finished just off the podium in fourth, having started seventh, after a quick first pitstop on lap 17 gave him enough time to bed in his softer red-walled Firestone tyres and leapfrog Alexander Rossi and Scott Dixon.

Finishing just behind was Sato, who couldn't replicate the pace he showed in qualifying as he was having to parry attacks from Andretti Autosport team-mate Rossi - showing strong race pace as he came up from ninth place at the grid.

Helio Castroneves and Ryan Hunter-Reay finished seventh and eighth, just ahead of former points leader Scott Dixon.

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver was struggling with serious oversteer in the first half of the race and lost time in the pits as his crew adjusted front-wing angles to try and cure the issue.

Rounding out the top 10 was AJ Foyt driver Conor Daly, who harried James Hinchcliffe for 10th in the closing laps of the race thanks to a bigger reserve of Push to Pass.

RESULTS - 90 LAPS:

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1h46m19.5989s
2 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 5.1556s
3 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 6.3129s
4 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 6.8807s
5 Takuma Sato Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 7.3092s
6 Alexander Rossi Andretti Herta Dallara/Honda 9.0266s
7 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 11.6809s
8 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 12.3623s
9 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 18.1857s
10 Conor Daly AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 20.5661s
11 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 27.3241s
12 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 29.9928s
13 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 31.1248s
14 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 32.5958s
15 Max Chilton Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 33.1095s
16 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 36.1997s
17 J.R. Hildebrand Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m00.8248s
18 Carlos Munoz AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 1 Lap
19 Spencer Pigot Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1 Lap
20 Esteban Gutierrez Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1 Lap
21 Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 2 Laps

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:

Pos Driver Points
1 Josef Newgarden 453
2 Helio Castroneves 446
3 Scott Dixon 445
4 Simon Pagenaud 436
5 Will Power 401
6 Graham Rahal 395
7 Takuma Sato 381
8 Alexander Rossi 358
9 Tony Kanaan 320
10 James Hinchcliffe 316
11 Max Chilton 310
12 Ryan Hunter-Reay 297
13 Marco Andretti 286
14 Ed Jones 285
15 J.R. Hildebrand 276
16 Mikhail Aleshin 237
17 Carlos Munoz 236
18 Charlie Kimball 223
19 Conor Daly 199
20 Spencer Pigot 165
21 Ed Carpenter 142
22 Sebastien Bourdais 136
23 Juan Pablo Montoya 93
24 Gabby Chaves 83
25 Esteban Gutierrez 83
26 Oriol Servia 61
27 Sebastian Saavedra 52
28 Fernando Alonso 47
29 Pippa Mann 32
30 Jay Howard 24
31 Zach Veach 23
32 Sage Karam 23
33 James Davison 21
34 Jack Harvey 17
35 Tristan Vautier 15
36 Buddy Lazier 14


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