Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden in the No.2 Hitachi Chevrolet says he knew they had a great car as he scored back to back victories in Iowa on Sunday.
The Tennessee native started the race from seventh and claimed a dominant win to take his sixth career victory at the Newton track.
For us, we knew we had a great car, and the pressure was there because we wanted to execute on it and make sure it was a great weekend. I am happy now. When you finish the first race, its great to have a doubleheader, but you feel incomplete until you get through today. To be able to come back and do it again, and make our car a little bit better, I am super proud of the team. Luke and the entire group. Chad leading the boys, its just a fantastic effort from everyone. Hitachi has been with most of my victories I think, so to be with them and have them on the car is fantastic. And Team Chevy. We almost got a repeat of that 1-2-3 for Chevy. So, sorry we didn’t get that done but they were phenomenal this weekend.”
Will Power in the No.12 Verizon 5G Chevrolet started the race from pole position however was unable to stop the charge of his teammate and finished second to give Team Penske a 1-2 finish.
Yeah, it was a very good restart. We struggled massively at the beginning and my engineer made a really good change. Taking wing out helped me so much. I had a really fast car, we just needed to pit a couple of laps early so that we could be P2 to Josef and I think we might have had a shot at it. It’s the best car that I have had here, and I was really happy with it and enjoyed the race. Not the first stint though. Man, I was like white knuckling it the whole time, so I am stoked to get the Verizon Chevy to P2. It’s pretty tough to beat Josef here, but we will do it one day.”
Scott McLaughlin in the No.3 XPEL Chevrolet started the race from second but fell back in the race coming home in fifth place.
“It’s more mental than anything. I have no idea how I finished that last stint. I had burned the right rear off and I was just hanging on. It was a sprint car there. So, out on the cush and having a lot of fun, but I am happy to bring the XPEL Chevrolet back with two top fives. A podium is not a bad deal. I would have loved to have joined my teammates at the podium today, but we just tried something different, and it didn’t quite work.”