FORT WORTH, Texas – Saving the best for last. Josef Newgarden got by his Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin to win Sunday’s XPEL 375 at Texas Motor Speedway by 0.0669 seconds.
Coming to the white flag, McLaughlin appeared to have the race in the bag until lapped cars played a role with Newgarden making a daring move on the outside. The pass denied him from starting the championship trail 2-0 and bringing Roger Penske’s organization its 600th motorsports victory.
Instead, it was the two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion who got the job done. On top of the victory, Newgarden was given $600 (real cash or not is to your imagination) and will take his No. 2 PPG crew to perhaps In-N-Out Burger.
Following the race, Newgarden said it was a race of patience and when the race came down to the wire, he chanced it by going high in Turn 3. When the winning passed was secured, Newgarden was so ecstatic that he was shouting over the radio before crossing the line.
“At the end, I was like Scott is going to be hard to beat with traffic. He’s been strong this whole time. He was strong last year, strong at the test. I thought if we just had clear running, we would have a great fight. We probably would have been dicing back and forth the entire time,” Newgarden commented.
“It gets so difficult when you have cars that are about to go a lap down, fighting each other. Scott is trying to manage that. Hurts me to be able to close up on end.
“At the end, I literally conceded with two laps to go. It’s just not going to happen. I literally almost lost it off four pushing hard to go ahead close. He did a good job. He was in position. He’s in position, he’s going to win this rails, bring it home.”
Newgarden added three more things that made the last-lap pass possible. Running in the daytime, headwind and the 30-minute bonus practice session the day before. Aforementioned, it would’ve led to an accident that would’ve denied Penske’s 600th win had it not been for all three.
“It wasn’t the daytime running, it’s the changes to the aerodynamic package. We were running quite a bit more downforce than last year,” said Newgarden. “The wind direction was different today than normal. Normally we’re getting a tailwind down the frontstretch. Today we had a headwind. It aids the passing.
“I think the session they ran yesterday cleaned up a little bit of the second lane. It really did. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did in three and four last year. There’s just no way. I would have hit the fence for sure.”
McLaughlin, who led a race-high 186 of 248 laps, reflected on what he would’ve done differently. Among the concerns was trying to fend off his teammate where he feared it would’ve ended ugly on the last lap. While he was pissed losing, he’s still happy seeing Newgarden win for the team.
“My car was tightening up, especially in traffic. It probably wasn’t handling exactly how it had at the start earlier in the race. I was sort of maxed out on my tools. I was trying to control the traffic, couldn’t catch the traffic too much. At the end the traffic checked up into me,” McLaughlin explained.
“I knew there were going to be dramas in three and four. I struggled with my turns at three and four. I guess I wasn’t prepared to take the risk on the outside at 3-4, which looking back at it I should have. My teammate Josef, obviously Josef chose to. Once he was on the outside of me, I can’t do anything.
“I’m gutted. I’ll reevaluate everything over the next few days. But it’s funny, like last year I was fist-pumping and jumping out of the car finishing second. I’m like today, It sucks. That’s how it is.”
Regarding the conditions, McLaughlin noticed the headwind being a problem because it affected his No. 3 XPEL Chevrolet towards the very end. That certainly played a role on the finish which left him unprepared setup-wise, hoping to learn from it next time.
“Obviously the first stint went for a long time. I actually battled with the vibration on the run. We still had pretty good speed. I managed to pull away,” said McLaughlin.
“But definitely the wind, the conditions, changed towards the end of the race. Very gusty off turn two, which made it quite loose. A lot of push, quite tight through 3-4.
“Maybe my car wasn’t quite set up for the gustier conditions, but all in all I think we had a really solid race car today. We were right there, thereabouts, throughout the whole race. I passed Dixon into one, a few others into one, able to demand track position when we needed to, that’s what we needed to do: get the right track positions at the right time.”
Marcus Ericsson was the highest-finishing Honda with a third-place finish. After starting 14th, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver worked his way towards the front and through teamwork, scored the best oval finish of his career.
“It was a great day for us in the No. 8 Huski Chocolate Honda. We started a bit further back than we would have liked. I didn’t really have a great run yesterday in qualifying. Had some work to do,” Ericsson commented.
“But I did a really good start, some good restarts, then my guys did really good strategy. My car was pretty difficult to drive in the beginning of the race, but we adjusted throughout the race to get it better. That was pretty helping me.
“Huge team effort today, get all the way from 14th up to the podium, yeah, a very good day. I’m very happy with that.”
Rounding out the top-five were Will Power and Scott Dixon, who got by his teammate Jimmie Johnson in the closing laps to capture fifth. For the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, it was his first career top-10 finish in INDYCAR.
“I’m really happy,” said Johnson. “I know I have a very steep hill to climb on the road and street courses, but coming to an oval and doing what I felt what I can do in my heart. Certainly, what Chip feels I can do in his heart feels real good.”
Throughout the race, several drivers came and went as mechanical woes and crashes took out several of the top hitters.
Among those were pole sitter Felix Rosenqvist, who lost the lead on the opening lap to McLaughlin.
As the race went by, Rosenqvist’s afternoon went south and brought to pit road during the fourth and final caution period. It was game over for the Swede who once again can’t find luck on race day since joining the team last season.
Similar to Rosenqvist, Alexander Rossi’s luck again was non-existent after mechanical issues resulted in a last-place effort and completed 11 laps.
Others that failed to finish were four-time Texas winner Helio Castroneves, who was involved in a three-car crash in Turn 3. The Lap 129 accident eliminated also Graham Rahal and rookie Devlin DeFrancesco.
DeFrancesco was the center of controversy throughout the day. Before his day was over, the Andretti Autosport racer played a role on the demise of both Takuma Sato and Kyle Kirkwood’s days. Both were running well, but incidents ruined a promising day in “The Lone Star State.”
For Kirkwood, who crashed in Turn 3 on the 114th lap, there’s not much to chat with DeFrancesco regarding what happened. Instead, his mindset is on Long Beach.
“We’ll just move. No reason to talk about it,” said Kirkwood. “At the end of the day, we ended up in the wall. That’s not going to change, so hindsight is 20/20.”
Castroneves is an open book, but he can only do so much regarding helping DeFrancesco on avoiding oval driving antics.
“I can only help people if they accept that. I cannot go and just tell (Devlin) what to do if a person is not open to it,” said Castroneves. “I’m open to anybody. Not only rookies, but anybody that wants to do it. I’d love to but he needs to accept (the blame).”
Following the carnage, the race went caution free for the rest of the day. Behind sixth-place Johnson were Alex Palou, Simon Pagenaud, Santino Ferrucci and Rinus VeeKay.
In three weeks time, the NTT IndyCar Series will host the second most prestigious race of the year. It’s none other than the Grand Prix of Long Beach that’ll commence Sunday, April 10th. Colton Herta is the defending race winner.
2022 XPEL 375 Results
- 2 – Josef Newgarden
- 3 – Scott McLaughlin
- 8 – Marcus Ericsson
- 12 – Will Power
- 9 – Scott Dixon
- 48 – Jimmie Johnson
- 10 – Alex Palou
- 60 – Simon Pagenaud
- 45 – Santino Ferrucci
- 21 – Rinus VeeKay
- 18 – David Malukas (R)
- 26 – Colton Herta
- 33 – Ed Carpenter
- 11 – JR Hildebrand
- 5 – Pato O’Ward
- 77 – Callum Ilott (R)
- 4 – Dalton Kellett
- 20 – Conor Daly
- 30 – Christian Lundgaard (R) (Contact)
- 51 – Takuma Sato (Contact)
- 7 – Felix Rosenqvist (Mechanical)
- 15 – Graham Rahal (Contact)
- 06 – Helio Castroneves (Contact)
- 29 – Devlin DeFrancesco (R) (Contact)
- 14 – Kyle Kirkwood (R) (Contact)
- 28 – Romain Grosjean (Contact)
- 27 – Alexander Rossi (Mechanical)
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