IndyCar Iowa Speedway Notebook:
Josef Newgarden Ties Best Career-Finish At Iowa Speedway:
Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing’s (SFHR) Josef Newgarden capitalized on a poor qualifying performance at Iowa Speedway Saturday night by roaring his No. 67 Hartman Oil Honda to a career-best second in the Iowa Corn 300.
Newgarden, 23, took advantage of a late race caution to put tires on his IndyCar and used the final handful of laps to make the charge with eventual winner Ryan Hunter-Reay to collect his first podium of the year.
The 2011 Indy Lights champion has faced his share of diversity in 2014. Strong qualifying efforts this season have been thwarted by race day bad luck by either an accident or mechanical failure. Saturday night, slowly everything came together.
Steadily as the 300-lap race progressed, Newgarden and his team marched forward and found themselves sitting in a position to pounce, following the final caution of the night, when Juan Pablo Montoya and Ed Carpenter tangled.
“That was the weirdest experience I’ve had in a race. It’s almost unfair,” offered Newgarden. “You put on tires like that and you just have so much more grip than everybody. It was a great call. And I knew it was going to be an interesting race because Graham and Ryan (Hunter-Reay) had done it in front of me and I thought, ‘If this is going to play out, it will be between us.’ And Ryan got a good jump and I got a good jump with it and we kept carving up to the top and I knew the laps were clicking down and with about five to go, I realized, ‘OK, this is going to get really good.’
“Just not enough time to get Ryan. I think it’s really cool finishing on the podium. Obviously it’s a great job for our whole team, especially after qualifying, we made a bit of an error there. We just did an amazing job tonight. Our team was solid. We had such good pit stops, really good strategy and kept our head in the game the entire way. We didn’t have the best balance all race long, but there were parts when we were really fast. We just kept with it and at the end there, we made it when it counted.”
Before Saturday night’s finish, the best run that SFHR had scored this season was an eighth twice on the Streets of Birmingham and last weekend at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway. Newgarden also has a second at Baltimore last season.
The finish was the perfect “welcome back” gift for co-team owner Sarah Fisher, who returned to the racetrack for the first time this weekend since the birth of a boy, Daniel James.
Juan Pablo Montoya’s Night Cut Short:
Juan Pablo Montoya, the most recent winner in the Verizon IndyCar Series had hopes of making it back-to-back victories for his Team Penske team on Saturday night at Iowa Speedway, but a late-race tangle with Ed Carpenter abruptly ended his night.
A dejected Montoya exited his No. 2 PPG Chevrolet and waited for Carpenter to return to the scene of the incident, where the Columbian initiated his displeasure with the driver of the No. 20 Chevrolet.
After struggling early in the race, Montoya’s machine fired to life as the sun set. Moving rapidly through the field and setting his sights on the top-five, Montoya attempted to pass Carpenter on Lap 280, but instead found himself in the Turn 3 and 4 wall.
“I got inside of (Carpenter) and he was running high and then all of a sudden decided to run low,” Montoya said. “He had been running every lap on the top. I got a run I got inside of him and he just turned down on me. They all love preaching safe racing but when you go to pass them, they are just douchebags. “It’s a very frustrating deal but we have to move on. We’re still in good shape.”
Post-race Carpenter insisted he had no idea that Montoya was there.
“I would like to apologize to Juan Pablo (Montoya),” he said. “I’m sorry that he crashed but I didn’t do it on purpose. I was hanging on with my tires and I didn’t know that he was there. I never saw him up next to me. And we didn’t bump. By the time my spotter (Lee Bentham) mentioned left corner to me, I went low to avoid pushing up towards the wall. I’m sorry that happened.
I’ll plan to talk to him about it too.”
Carpenter ended his interview with, “I’m sure the whole country of Colombia is mad at me tonight.”
Rookie Mistake Costly For Mikhail Aleshin:
Quite possibly Mikhail Aleshin made his first rookie mistake of his Verizon IndyCar Series season on Saturday night at Iowa Speedway.
Following the red flag for inclement weather and a pit stop, Aleshin attempted to make his missile-like charge towards the front, only this weekend it backfired. Just after taking the green flag, Aleshin hit the apron in Turn 4, which sent his No. 7 SMP Racing Honda into a violent spin, which also collected A.J. Foyt Racing’s Takuma Sato on Lap 49.
Both drivers exited their vehicles under their own power, but were done for the night.
“What happened is I just made a mistake,” Aleshin sounded. “I spun. I didn’t really know if I went below the line on the exit, but in any case, suddenly the rear of the car just went and there was nothing I could do about it at this point. So I feel very sorry for my team because obviously we had a nice car in the front. We were in a good place today. We’ll regroup and head to Toronto.”
Indeed, the impressive Russian was in a good place (at the time), but didn’t need the spotlight of another wreck with Takuma Sato. The two had a run-in in the first double-header race on the streets of Houston, which also ended both drivers race. The incident then sparked some harsh words from legendary car owner A.J. Foyt and Saturday night offered a similar rant.
In his first season of IndyCar Series competition, Aleshin has earned attention for his eagerness to adapt to new tracks quickly, which has often paid off with strong performances and even mind-boggling finishes. This weekend proved to be a similar case, with just the opposite result.
The 27-year old had never seen the 0.875-mile paved oval before Friday’s practice, but by the second practice, he shined like a veteran, placing his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda into second. Qualifying though wasn’t as strong, netting 12th. Playing the conservative approach early, Aleshin was ready to plan his attack, but for once, his welcomed aggression failed to pay off.
The positive for Aleshin? He didn’t lose any spots in the championship standings and remains 13th.
Next week, the Verizon IndyCar Series returns to Toronto for the Honda Indy Toronto, a double-header scheduled for Saturday, July 19 and Sunday, July 20.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
