The IndyCar Afterburn: Iowa 2025

Today’s theme music: “(sic)” by Slipknot

This weekend was a rare treat for racing fans, as Formula E and IndyCar magically aligned to give us a double doubleheader of championship open-wheel racing. The electric series started each day with a Berlin ePrix at the winding Tempelhof Airport circuit, where Jaguar’s all-star Aucklanders Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy split the wins, but Nissan’s Oliver Rowland claimed the World Drivers’ Championship. Then, IndyCar swooped in for a main event with an entirely different style of racing, as 27 cars waged war seven-eighths of a mile at a time in the Iowa 275s.

Between the loss of traditional sponsor Hy-Vee and the accompanying concerts they brought, the low attendance that resulted, and Mother Nature sending rain and tornadoes to mess with the weekend’s schedule, it was a bit of an endeavor just to get this race off the ground. Once we got going, though, we witnessed a pair of compelling showdowns with unexpected names coming to the fore at various points on both days. So without further ado, let’s get into the ups, downs, and all-arounds from the Hawkeye State and see how radically different our championship picture now looks.

O’Ward hits century mark in style

Whatever the result, Saturday marked an important milestone for Pato O’Ward, as he arrived for his 100th start in IndyCar. After qualifying 5th, the ever-popular Mexican did what he does best, unleashing menacing speed and pouncing on every opportunity in front of him. That allowed him to snatch the effective lead on the final round of pit stops, turn it into an effective lead, and fend off his challengers all the way to the checkered flag. After a year of could’ve-beens and almosts, Pato finally took his first win of the season, and in the process, he made history. O’Ward is now just the sixth driver in American open-wheel history to win their 100th race, putting him in an elite class with names like A.J. Foyt, Bobby Unser, and Mario Andretti.

Sunday wouldn’t be quite as fruitful, but Pato still threatened for the podium all day long and managed his sixth top-five out of the last eight races. That’s a level of consistency he didn’t always have last time around, and in a year where one man didn’t have everyone else in a chokehold every week, O’Ward could well have been the favorite to take the National Championship.

Palou delivers on Sunday

By his standards, Álex Palou had a shockingly quiet Saturday, even though that still meant leading four laps on strategy and finishing in 5th. On Sunday, though, he and his DHL car would make up for that, as the Spaniard started on pole, led 194 laps across four stints at the front, and got the yellows to fall his way to take win number seven this year.

To give you an idea of how absurd his year has been, Palou now stands as one of the 25 winningest drivers in American championship open-wheel history after just 93 races in the discipline. He’s scored more points in 12 races this year than everyone except himself scored over the full 2024 season. If he were to take a two-week family vacation in Brazil and miss the remaining races in July, he would still be in the lead when he returned for August no matter what happened while he was gone. This is a level of greatness we’ve almost never seen in this sport and may never see again afterward. The only question left is how much higher he can take things.

Newgarden a king uncrowned

No one needed a strong weekend in Iowa more than the circuit’s all-time king, Josef Newgarden. Unfortunately for him, he must have wished for one on a monkey’s paw. Saturday was an absolute monster performance, as Newgarden claimed pole position, then led the first 232 consecutive laps. In the process, he became the first driver in American open-wheel history to lead 2,000 career laps at a single track. However, his hopes of fully retaking the local crown fell apart on the final pit stop, when one of his crew members bobbled the left front tire before putting it on. That allowed just enough of a window for O’Ward to punch through and steal the effective lead, and despite a valiant fight, Joey Plants never got it back.

Sunday proved an even more frustrating tour, as despite leading 72 more laps, his commitment to an undercut strategy—perhaps spurred by Chevrolet cars’ weaker fuel mileage—meant that, on two separate occasions, Newgarden got caught out by an Andretti crashing at the wrong time. The first happened early enough that Newgarden could overcome it, fighting all the way back to the lead from 13th. The second, however, was a bridge too far, and on a day that should’ve been worth so much more, the Penske star finished 10th.

On the whole, it’s a mixed bag. Obviously, leading the most combined laps of the weekend and having no victories to show for it is a major gut punch, especially in the context of the season Newgarden and the rest of Team Penske have had. However, the pole and runner-up finish from Saturday still make this his most successful weekend of the year, and with just a smidge more luck on one of the remaining ovals, Joey Plants could yet find a season-saving win.

Dixon remains Iowa bridesmaid

Scott Dixon has been so good for so long that it’s always a shock to learn that there’s a track where he hasn’t won yet. Iowa is on that short list, and after falling to 10th on Saturday, he wasn’t exactly in focus for Sunday’s pre-race discussions. However, in classic Dixon fashion, the Iceman snuck into contention when no one was looking and cashed in on the shot, making passes on pit row and on track in the final mad dash to ensure a Ganassi 1-2. This also makes two podiums in the last three races for Dixon, as well as fourteen career top fives in the Hawkeye State. He might still be without his win in the cornfield, but he’s done more at this track than some who’ve won it outright.

Will’s got the Power (until he doesn’t)

Saturday was a major bounce-back day for Team Penske as a whole, with all three drivers showing out. Josef Newgarden, as we’ve covered, dominated out front and still came 2nd even with the bobble, while Scott McLaughlin overcame a disastrous crash in qualifying to go from 27th to 4th. That left Will Power as the least flashy performer of the trio, which is saying something, because he put on a clinic of his own. The Australian led three laps, earning an all-important bonus point, and took on all comers in clean, thrilling battles for position on his way to 3rd place. The Queenslander looked ready to do the same on Sunday before an engine failure ended his day extremely early. Still, he’ll take some consolation from his first podium since the Indianapolis Grand Prix back in May, and it’ll be a performance to build on as we approach the final stretch.

Armstrong stays out for bronze

Amidst all the noise the bigger stars of the series have made lately, Marcus Armstrong has been putting together a quiet run of consistent strength. He started a streak of top-tens all the way back at Detroit, maintained it Saturday with 9th place and 3 laps led, then reaped massive rewards from the field-flipping final yellow as one of seven drivers who hadn’t pitted yet. From there, the 2023 Rookie of the Year just had to keep it together and execute, and it paid off with Armstrong’s first podium since Detroit last year. It’s a massive vindication, not just for him, but for Meyer Shank Racing, who’ve now gotten podiums out of both their drivers this year.

Rasmussen, Malukas shine as underdogs

Saturday’s big star outside the big teams, without question, was Christian Rasmussen. The Danish sophomore from Ed Carpenter Racing has been this year’s breakout oval driver, and he showed why again with a daring performance, taking all the bravest routes to pass his way up from 19th at the start to 6th by day’s end.

Meanwhile, Sunday was another star showcase for David Malukas, who started up near the front, threatened for the win all day, got into a thrilling multi-lap battle for the lead with Álex Palou, and even appeared to have the strategic edge at the end when he undercut Newgarden on the final stop. Had it not been for the Herta crash flipping the field, Lil Dave was looking like he might snag an extremely popular first win. Still, 4th place is a very respectable result, and it’s looking very possible that Malukas matches his teammate Santino Ferrucci with a multi-podium season.

Siegel’s health takes serious hit

This weekend should have been another massive step forward for McLaren’s Nolan Siegel. The young Californian put on an impressive qualifying, earning a P5 start for Sunday, and spent much of Saturday slicing and dicing his way to what looked like a sure top-ten. However, on lap 248, it all went horribly wrong when Siegel hit the wall in turn 4 extremely hard. The ensuing damage to the SAFER barrier was so severe it necessitated a red flag to get it repaired. However, Siegel himself got the worst of it, sustaining a concussion that forced McLaren to withdraw the #6 car from Sunday’s race. If his symptoms still haven’t subsided by next weekend, we could see the first substitute driver of the season, with names like Théo Pourchaire and Linus Lundqvist already in the speculative mix. Whatever happens, we can only hope that Siegel recovers not just quickly, but fully. Concussions are no joke, and the last thing he needs is to rush back before he’s ready and compound the problem by crashing again.

The Sicko’s Guide to DNFs: these ones are funny because no one got hurt

As for the rest of Saturday’s crashes, we saw three drivers hit the high wall in turn 2 over the course of the day and effectively outline the flow of the race. Jacob Abel spurred the first round of pit stops, Kyle Kirkwood prompted the second, and Callum Ilott further shortened the post-red flag shootout to just nine laps. We also saw a quieter mechanical failure, as Alexander Rossi pulled in with engine failure with about 40 laps to go.

Sunday started with our lone multi-car crash, as Devlin DeFrancesco potentially reignited beef from all the way back at Thermal by losing it and wiping out both himself and Scott McLaughlin. Will Power joined Scotty Mac in disappointment not long after with a power unit failure. The most crucial crashes, of course, were the two Andrettis. Marcus Ericsson managed to wreck the instant Josef Newgarden ducked in for a second stop, necessitating Joey Plants’s thrilling charge from 13th back to 1st, and Colton Herta, who’d survived several near-misses across both races, finally bit the bullet with 23 to go, effectively sacrificing himself to take all of Chevy’s top contenders out of the fight for the win. Finally, rounding out the list, we have Sting Ray Robb, who thankfully had a normal kiss with the outside wall instead of the soaring acrobatics of his crash here last year, and Callum Ilott, who cemented an absolutely tragic double-DNF weekend.

Championship Collage: twenty title shots buried in a cornfield

The weekend’s two winners now occupy the top two spots, with Pato O’Ward moving up to 2nd behind an ever-dominant Álex Palou. Scott Dixon also rose to 3rd, while Kyle Kirkwood tumbled down a place per day as part of a generally horrid weekend for Andretti Global. Christian Lundgaard rounds out both the top 5 and the 300 points club, and the two Meyer Shanks of Felix Rosenqvist and Marcus Armstrong are close behind.

With twice the usual points on offer, Iowa also served as our first big National Championship eliminator, and we certainly had some casualties on that front. Saturday saw Jacob Abel and Callum Ilott literally crash out of contention, with Devlin DeFrancesco, Sting Ray Robb, Robert Shwartzman, and Louis Foster also missing the cut. Then, on Sunday, it got absolutely apocalyptic. Palou’s maximum-points performance knocked out 14 drivers at once, including the entire lineups of Ed Carpenter Racing, A.J. Foyt Racing, and Team Penske. Only the top seven are mathematically alive, with Will Power and Colton Herta both DNFing exactly one point short of survival.

In our Rookie of the Year race, Louis Foster managed to briefly extend his lead into double digits, but Robert Shwartzman cut that gap back down to five points on Sunday by achieving both his and Prema’s first ever podium in IndyCar.

The Manufacturers’ Cup finally developed some sort of back-and-forth when Chevrolet put their first win of the season on the board. In fact, Saturday was the biggest one-race rout of the year, as Detroit machinery locked out the entire top four while Honda could only score their points from 5th and 9th. However, the California wings hit back hard on Sunday, sweeping the podium to keep their lead just over 200 points. With a clearly-demonstrated mileage advantage across all types of circuits, Honda may have lost their perfect season bid, but they’ve gained massive confidence that their teams will wrap up this trophy for them well ahead of Nashville.

Finally, in our official unofficial Nations’ Cup tally, Saturday saw Mexico take back 3rd place from New Zealand off of Pato’s win, while the United States shrunk its gap to Spain for the lead down to 14. However, both those changes quickly reversed on Sunday, as Spain blew it back open while New Zealand squeaked three points clear for 3rd.

Future Flames: elbows up in Toronto

Next week, it’ll be our final street race of the year when IndyCar heads north of the border for the ever-exciting Indy Toronto. Last time we visited Exhibition Place, Colton Herta put together the single most dominant weekend in IndyCar history, topping the leaderboard in every single session from Friday practice to Sunday’s checkered flag, and he’ll be hungry to do that all over again. However, Kyle Kirkwood has been king of the streets so far, and he’d love to cement that beyond all doubt as the Floridian tries to keep his hopes of catching Álex Palou alive. And while you’re at it, keep an eye on Christian Lundgaard, who shocked everyone with a historic win here two years ago and will be raring to try and do it again for McLaren.