July 12, 2025 | By IndyCar PR

O’Ward Outduels Newgarden to Win Synk 275 powered by Sukup at Iowa Speedway

NEWTON, Ia.—Pato O’Ward again celebrated a victory in a monumental race at Iowa Speedway, this time at the expense of his NTT INDYCAR SERIES rival.

In the 100th series start of O’Ward’s career, the Arrow McLaren driver overcame Josef Newgarden’s dominating performance in the Synk 275 powered by Sukup with late-race execution featuring a pair of restarts in the final 14 laps.

This story is familiar. O’Ward and Newgarden continue to battle each other for race wins, with Newgarden’s signature win in the rivalry coming in the 2024 Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge. He passed O’Ward on the last lap.

This time, it was O’Ward making the winning moves. He had a quicker final pit stop to overtake the driver who led the race’s first 232 laps and seemed on his way to a record-extending seventh race win here. Then, following a red flag to repair the track’s Turn 4 wall, O’Ward kept the Team Penske driver behind him on restarts with 14 and nine laps remaining.

O’Ward’s margin of victory in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet was .2352 of a second, the closest Iowa finish since 2007 when Dario Franchitti edged Marco Andretti by .0861 of a second.

In oval races where these two drivers finished first and second, O'Ward last got the better of Newgarden in 2021 at Texas Motor Speedway. He had finished second to Newgarden in four other oval races since that day in Fort Worth.

“Josef is the master at these races – he rules around here, so I knew that we had to be spot-on,” O’Ward said. “I was so precise on the in lap to beat him at his own game.

“We’ve had so many duels, Josef and I, but he has a percentage that comes out on top more. Today is the day that changes.”

Coincidentally, O’Ward scored his first victory at this short oval in 2022, and it was the 50th series start. Also that day, O’Ward had Team Penske drivers in his mirrors – it was Will Power followed by Scott McLaughlin. This time, O’Ward led a trio of Roger Penske’s men to the to the finish line: Newgarden, Power and McLaughlin, respectively.

While O’Ward won his first race of the season, he denied Team Penske its first win of the year. One of the three of them had won eight of the past nine series races at Iowa, including doubleheader sweeps each of the past two years. McLaughlin had charged from the last starting position – 27th – after crashing in qualifying earlier in the day.

Chevrolet had its best result of the season, finishing 1-2-3-4 and winning the first time this year.

Newgarden led more than 100 laps for the 14th time in his career and the 10th time at this track. He was disappointed to let this one get away.

“O’Ward got track position and that was game over,” he said. “It was as simple as that.”

The dash to the finish was set up by the Turn 4 accident of O’Ward’s teammate, Nolan Siegel. After running in the top 10 most of the race, Siegel spun into the wall, contact that damaged the energy-absorbing SAFER Barrier. INDYCAR issued a red-flag stoppage to preserve the remaining few laps as workers patched the wall.

O’Ward got a noticeable jump on Newgarden on the first restart, but PREMA Racing’s Callum Ilott drifted high on that lap and brushed the Turn 1 wall. As Ilott was able to get to the pits without much trouble, the race restarted with nine laps remaining.

Newgarden got a better run on O’Ward on that try, but on the second time around the No. 2 Astemo Team Penske Chevrolet almost got away from him in Turn 1. O’Ward was able to slip away a bit, eating up laps that would have been valuable to Newgarden’s bid.

Trailing the Penske cars to the finish was Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, the series points leader who finished fifth. Palou lost seven points off his lead as O’Ward used the victory to jump to second in the standings, but the driver of the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda still holds a 106-point cushion with six races to go.

Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood took a big hit in both the race and in points when his No. 27 Sukup Honda veered hard into the Turn 1 wall on Lap 153. An issue with the right-front corner of the car appeared to cause the excursion. That was the second accident of the day as he crashed at the other end of the track after appearing to get too low in Turn 3.

Kirkwood not only lost a standings position to O’Ward, Palou pulled away by another 27 points, putting the season’s three-time winner 140 points in arrears.

On the race’s 75th lap, series rookie Jacob Abel saw his No. 51 Abel Construction Honda drift high in Turn 2, where he, too, hit the wall. Neither he nor Kirkwood were injured.

The second half of the weekend doubleheader will be staged Sunday with the Farm to Finish 275 powered by Sukup with coverage beginning at 1 p.m. ET on FOX, the FOX Sports app and the INDYCAR Radio Network.



SYNK 275 POWERED BY SUKUP RACE RESULTS

NEWTON, Iowa - Results Saturday of the Synk 275 powered by Sukup NTT INDYCAR SERIES event on the 0.894-mile Iowa Speedway, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):

1. (5) Pato O'Ward, Chevrolet, 275, Running
2. (1) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 275, Running
3. (7) Will Power, Chevrolet, 275, Running
4. (27) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 275, Running
5. (4) Alex Palou, Honda, 275, Running
6. (19) Christian Rasmussen, Chevrolet, 275, Running
7. (2) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 275, Running
8. (9) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 275, Running
9. (11) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 275, Running
10. (6) Scott Dixon, Honda, 275, Running
11. (14) Graham Rahal, Honda, 275, Running
12. (10) David Malukas, Chevrolet, 275, Running
13. (23) Colton Herta, Honda, 275, Running
14. (12) Louis Foster, Honda, 275, Running
15. (15) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 275, Running
16. (25) Rinus VeeKay, Honda, 274, Running
17. (3) Felix Rosenqvist, Honda, 274, Running
18. (22) Kyffin Simpson, Honda, 274, Running
19. (20) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 274, Running
20. (16) Robert Shwartzman, Chevrolet, 274, Running
21. (21) Christian Lundgaard, Chevrolet, 274, Running
22. (24) Sting Ray Robb, Chevrolet, 274, Running
23. (17) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 260, Contact
24. (8) Nolan Siegel, Chevrolet, 246, Contact
25. (13) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 236, Mechanical
26. (18) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 151, Contact
27. (26) Jacob Abel, Honda, 72, Contact

Race Statistics
Winner's average speed: 139.146 mph
Time of Race: 01:46:00.6760
Margin of victory: 0.2352 of a second
Cautions: 5 for 47 laps
Lead changes: 5 among 5 drivers

Lap Leaders:
Newgarden, Josef 1 - 232
O'Ward, Pato 233
Power, Will 234 - 236
Palou, Alex 237 - 240
Armstrong, Marcus 241 - 243
O'Ward, Pato 244 - 275

NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings: Palou 461, O'Ward 356, Kirkwood 322, Dixon 302, Lundgaard 272, Rosenqvist 272, Power 238, Herta 234, Armstrong 232, McLaughlin 229, Ferrucci 222, Malukas 205, VeeKay 193, Newgarden 186, Rasmussen 183, Rossi 181, Simpson 174, Daly 170, Rahal 158, Ericsson 156, Siegel 153, Foster 134, Shwartzman 123, Robb 113, DeFrancesco 110, Ilott 102, Abel 69, Takuma Sato 36, Helio Castroneves 20, Ed Carpenter 16, Jack Harvey 12, Ryan Hunter-Reay 10, Kyle Larson 6, Marco Andretti 5


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ROWE BREAKS THROUGH WITH FIRST SERIES WIN


NEWTON, Iowa  – Myles Rowe took a historic INDY NXT by Firestone victory at Iowa Speedway and then took a bow.

Rowe earned the INDY NXT by Firestone at Iowa Speedway win by executing a stirring late-race pass for the lead, then held on to become the first Black driver to win a race in this series. His margin at the finish was 1.3927 seconds.

SEE: Race Results

This is the second season in the series for the 25-year-old Georgia native who resides in New York and in 2023 captured the USF Pro 2000 Championship.

“It’s so good,” Rowe said after driving the No. 99 Abel/Force Indy entry to victory lane. “We’ve been working a minute for this, and we knew we had the pace. It was about waiting for the last half of the race and seeing what we could do with it.”

Fourteen laps from the finish, Rowe went around series points leader Dennis Hauger on the outside in Turn 4 as they came upon lapped traffic. Rowe’s experience paid off as Hauger, a series rookie, was competing in just his second oval race.

“We don’t stop here -- I’m looking for a lot more than this,” said Rowe, who is fourth in the standings. “But I’m glad we could get this (win), for sure.”

The race featured 130 on-track passes and 55 passes for position, both figures ranking in the top three of INDY NXT by Firestone races staged at this short oval track.

Hauger’s strong run in Andretti Global’s No. 28 Nammo machine helped extend his series lead to 73 points over teammate Lochie Hughes, a rookie driving the No. 26 McGinley Clinic/USF Pro Championship entry. Hughes finished 16th in the 19-car race after being penalized for a Lap 3 incident with Rowe.

Hughes, the winner of last month’s oval race at World Wide Technology Raceway, was trying to hold off Rowe for second place when Rowe moved to the inside on the backstretch. Their cars touched, with Hughes’ left rear tire taking a brush from Rowe’s front wing. Race control deemed that Hughes moved defensively, drawing a drive-through penalty that dropped him down a lap to the field.

Andretti Global’s Salvador de Alba, who had turned the fastest lap in Friday’s practice, finished third in the No. 27 Grupo Indi entry.

Several drivers had spins off Turn 4 without contact. HMD Motorsports’ Josh Pierson tried to take the high line around teammate Caio Collet for third place on Lap 26, but he lost the back end of the car. On the ensuing restarts, Juan Manuel Correa of HMD Motorsports and Ricardo Escotto of Andretti-Cape Motorsport spun on Lap 30 while Davey Hamilton Jr. of HMD Motorsports did the same on Lap 34.

The series will be back in action at the end of the month when a doubleheader is staged at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27. Those represent the 10th and 11th races of the 14-race season.