Josef Newgarden was taken out of the lead in a massive accident with rookie Louis Foster that sent Newgarden upside down, partly onto the pitwall and then across the Gateway oval track.
The shunt spilt an ocean of sparks from under Newgarden’s car as the aeroscreen protection device dragged across the track surface ending his hopes of a fifth win in six races at the circuit.
From the onboard of the No. 2 and @josefnewgarden ? pic.twitter.com/cDNFJq323f
Both drivers were able to walk away from their cars.
The incident came on lap 131/326.
Newgarden had recently taken over the lead from Scott McLaughlin with David Malukas leading most of the first stint - more laps than the 33 in his career previously combined - ahead of Newgarden and McLaughlin’s team-mate Will Power, who crashed out too with a tyre failure. McLaughlin later retired with a mechanical failure, potentially suspension related, all three Penskes failed to finish.
Will Power is in the WALL! ? pic.twitter.com/yaqb4mwW6z
Foster had ran as high as 13th and was comfortably the fastest looking Rahal Letterman Lanigan car before he got slightly too high in Turn 4 - “caught out by the marbles” - and hit the outside wall. He looked to have saved it but then shot from the top of the race track to the bottom, towards the pit road, and he suspected the original impact broke a toe-link.
Newgarden had already committed to the bottom of the track, so he met Foster there and hit him nose to nose, flipping his Team Penske car over. The rear wing dragged on the pitwall momentarily before the car slid down the road and came to a halt.
MASSIVE impact involving Louis Foster and Josef Newgarden ? pic.twitter.com/L0Y2M4VCLh
IndyCar’s safety crew were soon on hand to flip the car and Newgarden was able to get out.
Newgarden is now 14th in the points after another season where so many things have worked against him. Despite being put to the back at the Indy 500 for an illegal rear-crash structure, he’d fought his way into the top 10 before the halfway mark and looked favourite before a fuel issue ruled him out.
Take a second look at the incident between Newgarden and Foster ? pic.twitter.com/hMW4IEguM4
Foster had paused and sat on his car for a moment after the incident, but was cleared and the first driver to address the incident.
“Obviously, glad Josef is OK,” Foster added, in another blow to his rookie of the year hopes with plenty of misfortune this year to match his at times impressive qualifying form.
Honda sealed an eighth win in eight races and Kyle Kirkwood took his first oval victory to ensure he and Alex Palou are still the only winners in 2025.
Pato O’Ward took control after the Newgarden/Foster shunt, but on the penultimate pitstop Scott Dixon stayed out later than everyone else to take the lead.
A perfectly-timed caution just after meant Dixon had put the rest of the field a lap down, so he could pit and resume the lead ahead of the cars subsequently unlapped under the caution which came out for Malukas brushing the wall after a wiggle from Kirkwood pushed both cars up the track.
That set-up a typically bonkers IndyCar short oval finish where a host of cars that had topped off with fuel later than the leaders tried to make it to the end on fuel while the leaders had final pitstops.
Callum Ilott and Felix Rosenqvist were the last of the cars trying desperately to make it, holding a 10 second lead over Kirkwood with 13 laps to go.
Rosenqvist mugged Ilott ending the latter’s chances, but the battle was costly as Kirkwood ate into the time on his fresh tyres and no need to save fuel.
With seven to go Rosenqvist was forced to stop and it was only a matter of time before Kirkwood caught and past Ilott, which happened with 4 laps to go when Ilott stopped.
Kirkwood had to hold off the charging Pato O’Ward, but did so to ensure after eight races this year Kirkwood and Alex Palou are the only drivers to win this year.
It’s Kirkwood’s first win on an oval and O’Ward scored good points for the championship with Palou out of contention. O'Ward is second, the gap down from 90 to 77 points, with Kirkwood a further seven points back.
That's an oval dub for KIRKWOOOOOOD! ? pic.twitter.com/lQc48kxI2T
Palou went to the back of the pack twice, most notably on the first occasion when he was pinned into his pitbox by Christian Lundgaard, but recovered to finish eighth.
Behind O’Ward, Christian Rasmussen was one of the stars of the show as he made up 22 places to half his best IndyCar result to third, and it was done on pure pace rather than strategy.
It also came after his car caught fire earlier on and he had to do an extra stop after his car had a fuelling issue. His use of the high line was a highlight of the race.
Santino Ferrucci went from 19th to fifth, while Conor Daly was another star passing cars at will in the first half of the race, jumping from 15th to sixth.
Rinus VeeKay’s first oval weekend with ace engineer Michael Cannon yielded seventh despite late contact with Malukas, while Marcus Armstrong was ninth ahead of Prema’s best IndyCar finish so far with Robert Shwartzman in 10th.
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