NEWTON, Iowa — Pato O’Ward finally went to victory lane in 2025, holding off Josef Newgarden of Team Penske to win Saturday’s Synk 275 at Iowa Speedway.
It was O’Ward’s 100th career IndyCar start.
The Arrow McLaren driver defeated Newgarden by 0.265 seconds to give Chevrolet its first IndyCar win of the season.
O’Ward was followed by all three Team Penske drivers including second-place Newgarden, Will Power was third and Scott McLaughlin drove from last in the 27-car field to fourth.
First through fourth were Chevrolet drivers.
NTT IndyCar Series points Alex Palou was fifth, the highest finishing Honda driver. O’Ward moved into second in the IndyCar Series standings and Palou has a 105-point lead entering Sunday’s Farm To Finish 275.
It was the eighth IndyCar Series victory for the driver from Monterrey, Mexico.
“This is great,” O’Ward said. “We’ve been waiting for this one all year. My 50th race was also a win here at Iowa. That was my only IndyCar win at Iowa until today.
“I’m super happy I’m the Chevy guy that gave them their first victory this year. Josef Newgarden is the master at Iowa. He rules here and I had to beat him at his own game. We have another race Sunday to try to double up.
“Today is the day that changes. It was great racing here and I had a lot of fun making that second group work. Once I was ahead of him, I positioned myself to get it done.”
Newgarden started on the pole and led 232 laps, but for a second-place finisher, he didn’t look happy.
“O’Ward got track position there and it was game over,” Newgarden said of a pit-stop sequence from Lap 233 to 235. “Chevrolet finally got a win this year and they deserved to have more.”
Newgarden made his final pit stop with 42 laps to go moving Palou into the lead. The crew changed four tires and fuel in a clean start. One lap later, O’Ward came onto pit lane. With 40 to go, McLaughlin pitted as those three were good to go for the rest of the race.
O’Ward was able to get out of the pits ahead of Newgarden for position, it what would be the de facto lead, although they were in seventh and eighth place at the time.
Power led followed by Palou, who pitted, but had a fumble on the pit stop changing one of the front tires.
Marcus Armstrong was scored as the leader with 33 to go but still had to pit.
By the time the pit stop cycled concluded, O’Ward was the leader ahead of Newgarden, Power, McLaughlin and Palou. But with 29 laps left, Arrow McLaren driver Nolan Siegel crashed in Turn 4 to slow the race for caution with 27 laps remaining.
There was damage to the SAFER Barrier as a steel panel was being welded in the damaged area. Because of that, the Red Flag stopped the race with 17 laps remaining to give the crews time to repair the barrier.
The red flag was rescinded after 11 minutes and the cars returned under the yellow flag to set up what was expected to be the decisive restart.
The Pace Car pulled off with 15 laps to go and the restart was one lap later with O’Ward backing up the field to get an advantage.
He had a clean start, but Callum Ilott crashed into the wall for another caution with 13 laps left.
At the time of the caution, O’Ward was the leader followed by all three Team Penske drivers – Newgarden, Power and McLaughlin. Christian Rasmussen was in fifth as he had charged his way to 19th.
With nine laps to go, the green flag set the field loose and Newgarden attempted to use the high line to try at the lead. But O’Ward’s Chevrolet was too fast to pull it off as Newgarden had to make a save when his car lost traction.
But he wasn’t finished in his pursuit.
“First time I did a repeat at a track so that is a cool milestone for myself,” O’Ward said. “We’ve been working very hard, but the guy we are chasing for the championship (Alex Palou) is winning a bunch of them.
“For my race, I had a lot of time to get creative and got moving on the second restart. As soon as I got to Josef, he is one of those guys that tries to outsmart you. He has been running ovals longer than I have been in the series and that experience only comes with winning laps.
“We capitalized on that in-lap. I risked a bit more than I was planning to, but it was a great pit stop, and I did my job to secure us that overcut, and it gave us the win today.”
Earlier in the race, Christian Lundgaard’s No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet initially stalled on pit lane as the field rolled off for the parade and pace laps. Lundgaard was able to get restarted and take his qualified position.
The green flag waved, and it appeared to be a clean start except Colton Herta spun out of Turn 4 and slid across the grass for an immediate caution period.
It was a single-file restart on Lap 10 and Newgarden led Conor Daly and Felix Rosenqvist into the first turn. Alex Palou quickly passed Rosenqvist for third as the big winner in IndyCar this season was attempting to add a short oval victory to his impressive list of accomplishments.
Despite IndyCar’s best intentions of having drivers run the high line in the turns, it quickly turned into a one-groove race with Newgarden opening his lead.
After 25 laps, it was Newgarden, Daly, Palou, Rosenqvist and O’Ward.
McLaughlin, who started last in the 27-car field, had made up 12 positions by Lap 40.
Rasmussen had a nice save when he momentarily lost control of his Chevrolet before regaining it on Lap 42.
Jacob Abel crashed on Lap 75 and the yellow flag waved for the second time. Newgarden led Daly by 1.2 seconds at the time with Palou third, O’Ward fourth and Dixon fifth.
Newgarden led the field onto pit lane on Lap 79 and had a clean start, but Daly was gobbled up by the field on pit lane and lost four positions. He was second, and that position went to Palou after the pit stop cycle concluded.
The green flag waved on Lap 86 with Newgarden leading Palou, Dixon, Daly, O’Ward and Power.
O’Ward went on a tear and passed Palou and Daly to take over second place, about a half-second behind Newgarden.
When Newgarden passed Sting Ray Robb and put him one lap down on Lap 130, the leader had a buffer between himself and Palou.
At Lap 150, Newgarden continued to lead O’Ward by a half-second.
Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood crashed for the second time of the day when he hit the wall in Turn 2 in the No. 27 Sukup Honda. Kirkwood got up in the marbles in Turn 2 and he was out of the race.
Kirkwood entered the race, second in points, 113 behind Palou in the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series Championship.
“I’m fine, I feel good, just unfortunate,” Kirkwood said. “The Sukup Honda, we were making big improvements in the race, setting up our strategy and something out of our control ruined it.
“Right front just went away. Not much else I can say.”
Pit lane opened on Lap 152 and Newgarden led the field into the pits. He was able to get in and out of the pits without incident and maintain his position.
McLaughlin had raced his way to 11th place and would have to make one more pit stop. He was told that he could push it the rest of the way instead of saving fuel.
The green flag waved with 109 laps remaining and the high lane had been cleaned during the caution. Newgarden’s Chevrolet pulled away from O’Ward and Palou.
With 100 laps remaining, Newgarden led by 0.4 seconds over O’Ward.
Power blew past Daly for fourth place as the Team Penske driver tried to work his way to the front.
On Lap 200, McLaughlin passed Ferrucci for eighth place continuing his dramatic charge. Newgarden had built his lead to 0.618-seconds over O’Ward.
Newgarden built his lead to 1.19 seconds by Lap 214.
McLaughlin raced his way into sixth place when he passed Daly on Lap 224. That put three Penske drivers in the top six including the leader, Newgarden, third-place Power and sixth-place McLaughlin.
That set up the pit-stop sequence that would ultimately give O’Ward the track position he needed to win the race.
