Josef Newgarden Wins Sixth IndyCar Race at Gateway, Ties Al Unser Jr. on All-Time Win List

Josef Newgarden cemented his status as the undisputed king of World Wide Technology Raceway on Sunday night, surviving two rain delays to capture his sixth IndyCar victory in 11 starts at the 1.25-mile oval in Madison, Illinois. The win, which came just two weeks after Newgarden suffered a lower leg injury at the Indianapolis 500, was the 34th of his INDYCAR career — tying him with two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser Jr. for ninth on the all-time wins list.

The Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline was anything but a straightforward affair. Two red-flag periods totaling roughly 50 minutes kept pit strategists scrambling and made for a feverish, contact-filled race that produced an event-record 268 passes for position. Newgarden, who started eighth, methodically worked his way through traffic in his No. 2 Astemo Team Penske Chevrolet to deliver a result that few would have predicted given his injury status heading into the evening.

A Battle of Attrition and Strategy

The race quickly developed into a showcase for Marcus Ericsson, who led a career-high 114 laps and appeared poised for his first victory since March 2023 at St. Petersburg. The Andretti Global driver pushed Newgarden all the way to the wire but ultimately fell short by .6613 of a second. Christian Rasmussen, who started 17th in the No. 21 Splenda Chevrolet for Ed Carpenter Racing, completed the podium with a season-best third-place finish after a spirited duel with Newgarden in the closing stages.

The decisive sequence came between laps 212 and 221, following the final restart of the evening. Rasmussen dove under Newgarden in Turn 1 on Lap 215 to briefly take the lead, only to see Newgarden reclaim the top spot two laps later in Turn 3. Rasmussen went back under in Turn 1 on Lap 220, but Newgarden answered one final time — a move he would not relinquish over the remaining 40 laps. Ericsson, running second, never had the speed to close the half-second gap that Newgarden maintained through the closing circuits.

“Great job to the group,” Newgarden said after climbing from his car. “Just a methodical night. We had a good car to start. It wasn’t perfect, but it really came to us just when we needed it. It was a track position day.”

Championship Implications and Palou’s Stumble

The victory had significant implications for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship picture. Points leader Alex Palou, driving the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, suffered an embarrassing mid-race moment when he ran out of fuel on pit road following a strategy gamble that backfired. Ganassi had called Palou and teammate Scott Dixon to the pits early following the first red-flag period, hoping to gain an advantage by cycling through fuel before the field. Instead, Palou stalled on pit lane and lost multiple positions, finishing seventeenth.

The stumble did little to shake Palou’s overall grip on the standings — he entered the race as the championship leader and has dominated the 2026 season with four wins, including victories at St. Petersburg, Barber, Long Beach, and Detroit — but it served as a reminder that Gateway is an unpredictable circuit where strategy and fortune can unravel even the best-laid plans. Newgarden’s win was his second of the season, having also prevailed in March at Phoenix Raceway’s 1-mile oval.

Rinus VeeKay earned a season-best fourth place for Juncos Hollinger Racing, while Scott McLaughlin rounded out the top five in the No. 3 DEX Team Penske Chevrolet, which carried a throwback livery honoring the 2009 Indianapolis 500-winning car driven by Helio Castroneves. Ericsson’s praise for Newgarden following the race was unambiguous: “I thought we had it at some points, but Josef is the best in the business on these short ovals.”

Newgarden’s Short-Oval Mastery

The numbers tell the story of a driver who has made an art form of racing on tracks shorter than 1.5 miles. Of Newgarden’s 34 career IndyCar victories, 15 have come on these shorter ovals — a remarkable rate that underscores just how comfortable the Nashville native is in close-quarters racing where tire management, drafting instincts, and split-second decision-making matter most. He has now won at Gateway six times in 11 starts, a winning percentage of nearly 55 percent at a single venue that borders on mythical in IndyCar circles.

The performance was all the more impressive given the circumstances. Newgarden wrecked out of the Indianapolis 500 two weeks ago — his second consecutive failed Indy bid — and arrived at Gateway still managing a lower leg injury from that crash. That he not only started but dominated the closing stretch of a race defined by chaos, rain stoppages, and an event-record volume of on-track passing speaks to both his physical toughness and his mastery of this particular circuit.

The IndyCar Series now heads to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, for the next round. With Palou still comfortably ahead in the points but showing signs of vulnerability, Newgarden and Team Penske will arrive at the road course in Wisconsin knowing that the championship remains well within reach.