On Sunday, Joseph Newgarden received a final-lap duel with Pat O’Ward to turn into the primary back-to-back winner of the Indianapolis 500 in 22 years.
Newgarden’s win capped off an eventful day on the Brickyard that noticed the beginning delayed 4 hours by a heavy storm and the race interrupted by quite a few cautions.
Nonetheless, the drivers managed to finish all 200 laps across the 2.5 mile oval, just for the race to finish at sundown in Indiana simply earlier than the curfew of 8.15pm (1.15am GMT).
Newgarden gave a crowd of greater than 300,000 an American winner on Memorial Day weekend. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon was third.
“I am so happy with this staff,” stated Newgarden, who acquired a $440,000 bonus for successful the Indy 500s. “Crushed – crushed.”
Beginning on the entrance row with Scott McLaughlin and 2018 Indy 500 champion Will Energy, Newgarden ran alongside the staff all day.
However in the long run the battle boiled right down to a last-lap shootout with O’Ward, Newgarden handed the Mexican’s Arrow McLaren to turn into solely the sixth driver to win consecutive 500s and the primary since Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002. .
Newgarden celebrates with a standard pint of milk after successful the Indy 500
Newgarden’s triumph was staff proprietor Roger Penske’s twentieth victory in “Racing’s Biggest Spectacle,” albeit with a bit scandal.
Though Newgarden celebrated by chugging the normal quart of milk, he took time to reply to critics who referred to as him a cheater after his season-opening IndyCar victory in St. Petersburg was forfeited for unlawful use of the Push-to- a cross function that offers drivers a lift in horsepower.
An investigation by staff proprietor Penske, which additionally owns the IndyCar Collection and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, resulted in Newgarden being disqualified and a number of other officers being sanctioned, together with race staff president Tim Cindric and race engineer Luke Mason.
“They will say what they need, I do not even care,” Newgarden stated. “We labored our tails off.
“Luke, Tim, they are not right here in the present day, however they seem to be a huge a part of it.”
Formulation 1 leaves Europe for the final time earlier than the summer time break when the championship strikes to Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix. Watch each session on the Gilles Villeneuve circuit from June 7-9 stay on Sky Sports activities F1, with Sunday’s race at 7pm. Stream each F1 race and extra with NOW Sports activities Month membership – no contract, cancel anytime