What a difference a week makes! Seven days ago,, Josef Newgarden was celebrating his second consecutive Indianapolis 500 victory; today, Sunday, 02 June, the Tennessee-native rolled off third at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear but struggled in the race. He suffered a fuel rig issue on pit road and had a near-miss incident with a crew member from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, who received medical attention from the AMR Safety Team for a cut.
Newgarden suffered a broken tow link with 18 laps to go and spun at the hairpin, being hit by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou; speaking following the race where he was classified in 26th place, he said:
“It is crazy how races in this series can turn on a dime. We were in a great position to capitalize on some of the drama going on around us to possibly win today. Unfortunately, Scott (McLaughlin) had his incident just before halfway and that helped us into second before we hit pit road. That’s kind of where our day went south when the fuel probe valve wouldn’t open initially, costing us a ton of track position. After restarting 19th, it just seemed our day went downhill. Definitely a wild afternoon for not just the Astemo Chevrolet team but for most of the field.”
Newgarden heads to Road America in tenth place in the championship on 128 points next weekend. Will Power in the No.12 Verizon Business Team Penske Chevrolet had an extremely eventful race, with several penalties for avoidable contact and service on pit-road when it was closed. However, he went forward to finish the race in sixth place. Speaking following the race, he said:
“That’s a good day. It was very tough, really. All sorts of stuff going on. Felt like Nashville. That’s, I mean, you’ve got everything in there. Rain, everything. Happy to get back to sixth, and go from there, and see what we could do. That is a good points day, man. I knew when it was that sort of race, (Scott) Dixon was going to win it somehow. We just wanted to salvage something.”
Scott McLaughlin was left disappointed in the No.3 Gallagher Chevrolet as he came home in 20th place having been penalized for avoidable contact.