Penske’s Power snaps 2-year IndyCar skid
Free Press staff and wire reports
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – The wait was worth it for Will Power.
Looking for his first NTT IndyCar Series victory in a full two years, Power made his final pit stop later than his two Team Penske Chevrolet mates, came out in front and held on to win the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America.
He led the final nine laps and finished 3.2609 seconds ahead of teammate Josef Newgarden.
“I felt good about today, had a very fast car,” Power said in his NBC interview. “Great strategy.
“Massively special. Massively special. We worked so hard to try to get wins, and I worked really hard in the offseason. The whole season last season was very stressful (with wife Liz ill). Had half a mind at home and half at the track. …
“That was very, very well deserved for the whole team.”
The 43-year-old Australian won for the 42nd time on the IndyCar circuit. He is the 2014 champion and the winner of the IndyCar Series’ first race at 4.014mile Road America in 2016.
Power had won a race in 16 straight seasons before being shut out last year. The victory ended a 34-race drought since the 2022 Detroit street-course race.
The race came down to strategy. He made the last of his pit stops on after 44 of the 55 laps, and came out ahead of Newgarden, who’d stopped one lap earlier, and Scott McLaughlin, who had stopped a lap before Newgarden.
Team Penske did sweep the podium with Newgarden — a two-time Road America winner — second, 3.2609 seconds behind, and McLaughlin third.
Power moved into the points lead, five points ahead of Alex Palou, who finished fourth. Scott Dixon, who came in as the points leader, finished 21st and dropped to third, 11 points out of the lead.
Chadwick wins Indy NXT race at Road America in female first
Britain’s Jamie Chadwick became the first female driver to win a race on a road or street course in IndyCar’s Indy NXT feeder series on Sunday when she triumphed at Road America in Wisconsin.
The 26-year-old started from pole position, only the third woman to do so in the U.S. series, and her win was the first by a female driver since compatriot Pippa Mann at Kentucky Speedway in 2010.
Brazilian Ana Beatriz is the only other woman to have won in the series, on ovals in 2008 and 2009 when the championship was known as Indy Lights.
“Oh man, I have no words,” said the Andretti Global driver, in her second season and with a third place at the Indianapolis round in May.
F1: Verstappen continues Canadian win streak
MONTREAL – Red Bull’s triple world champion Max Verstappen completed a Canadian Grand Prix hat-trick of victories on a wet, wild and tricky Sunday at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Verstappen, who started on the front row alongside Mercedes pole sitter George Russell, stayed clear of trouble on a day of constantly changing conditions, snatching the lead from McLaren’s Lando Norris on the final pit stops.
After Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Williams’s Alex Albon came together, bringing out the safety car for a second time, Verstappen pulled away on the restart and finished 3.879 seconds ahead of Norris while Russell won a nail-biting last-laps duel with team mate Lewis Hamilton to complete the podium.