St Louis saw spin and win for Josef Newgarden who reigned victorious in a chaotic race that saw multiple cautions, a red flag and huge championship implications.
As the green flag dropped to signal the return of IndyCar from the summer break, Scott McLaughlin led the field into turn one.
The Kiwi, who was controlling the start, got jump on David Malukas who joined him on the front row. It was not long before Malukas lost a place to another Penske on lap three, before getting it back on lap eight.
The Andretti cars also found themselves in some sketchy battles, Colton Herta getting a rocket of a launch, gaining seven places just before the first caution was brought out thanks to a collision between Katherine Legge and Ed Carpenter.
Legge was forced to retire from the race as she tried to force her car into a closing gap in turn one turning the 20 car, Carpenter was forced into the pits to replace his rear wing assembly but was able to continue.
Multiple drivers also took to pit road including last years winner Scott Dixon who took the opportunity to fill up on fuel
Malukas took the lead on the restart as McLauglin lost two spots as he was trying to fuel save.
Not long later, the second caution of the day came out as Rinus Veekay got loose, checking up Conor Daly behind him, causing a domino effect that involved Kirkwood going into the back of the 78, turning him round. The other Juncos car of Romain Grosjean also involved into the incident.
Daly surprisingly came away from the incident without major damage, the same could unfortunately not be said for Kirkwood and Grosjean who both made contact with the wall in an attempt to avoid the incident.
Both Juncos cars lost a lap due to the incident, Kirkwood was forced to make heavy repairs eventually getting back into the race 31 laps down.
When the race restarted once more on lap 27, Will Power took the lead as the drivers began to go into fuel conservation mode.
It was lap 42 when the next incident took place, this time not a crash but a technical issue for championship contender Pato O’Ward who’s Arrow McLaren lost drive whilst sitting comfortably in the top six.
The rest of the opening stint was one of fuel saving, lift and coast the words on everyone’s lips as the top 10 stayed largely unchanged before the pit sequence was opened by Veekay who took to pit lane on lap 59 from seventh position.
This caused a raft of stops including championship contenders Herta and current points leader Alex Palou. Polesitter Scott McLauglin was the last leading driver to make his stop on lap 64.
When the field eventually shuffled back into order it was Power who retained his lead after the first round of stops, followed by Malukas and McLaughlin in an unchanged top three.
The second stint started a similar way the first concluded as the drivers were forced to drive to a fuel number, conservation being key as the race settled down.
It was a wait until lap 86 until a third caution came out as Kyffin Simpson found the wall in turn three, in an incident that was reminiscent of Herta’s qualifying shunt a day earlier.
The caution opened up the opportunity for those on the alternate strategy, who pitted during the first yellow, to come in and top up on fuel and fit a fresh set of firestones. The leading driver to hit pit road was Ericsson who came in from fifth.
The longer caution allowed the IndyCar safety team to get out on track and clean up the marbles on the high line to aid racing when the green came back out.
When the field went to green on lap 95, Malukas struggled on traction coming out of the last corner, losing a position to McLauglin.
Malukas, who was struggling with clutch issues, was the first of the leaders to make their second stop. Followed in turn by Newgarden, Power and McLauglin in consecutive laps.
Whilst the order stayed the same among those who made their stops, they found themselves a lap down to the drivers who took advantage of the previous caution, taking turns to unlap themselves before catching the back of a train headed by race leader Marcus Ericsson.
The master of fuel saving Scott Dixon took to the front of the field on lap 140, closely followed by rookie Nolan Siegel who moved into the lead only a few laps later.
The top alternate runners then eventually bailed into the pits on lap 148, unfortunately for Siegel, he locked the rears slowing down for pit road, receiving a drive through penalty for his actions, ruining what looked to be a career best result for the 19 year old.
Following the alternate runners’ stops, the advantage looked to go back to those on the primary strategy.
Malukas was again the first of the primary strategy runners to make their stop on lap 167. Followed by the same pattern of pit stops that we saw in the last green flag pit phase.
By the time everyone had made their stops, there was a complete shuffle of the podium positons, McLaughlin taking the lead followed by his Penske teammates Newgarden and Power.
Lap 189 saw the first on track battle for the lead since the last caution came out 91 laps previous, Newgarden attempting a move on McLauglin, unsuccessfully on this occasion.
As the leaders caught traffic coming up to the 200th lap, the first driver to be caught out was Newgarden who was running second and whist trying to make moves on the high line found himself losing the rear of his car. Miraculously, he was able to save it and such was the gap he had over the others, he only lost two positions.
As there was a car sideways on an oval, unsurprisingly the caution came out which sprung the race back to life as the leaders made their final stops under yellow. Even more surprising was Power and Malukas who stayed out, in effect moving to the front of the field.
When the caution came in with 54 laps to go, there were two strategies to keep an eye on, Power and Malukas who were full push to the end, whereas the other group that consisted of McLaughlin and Newgarden were going to have to save a sizable amount of fuel.
As Power continued to set fastest laps, the gap to the group behind widened, Malukas the first of the two to bail out with 43 laps to go before being followed by Power a lap later.
Where originally it was though that McLaughlin would be stay out for the rest of the race, it quickly showed the pace the kiwi was running meant he would need to pit for an extra fuel stop.
Just as it seemed the advantage was ebbing towards Power and Malukas, disaster struck. Malukas went for a move to the inside of turn one on Power who cut across his nose, putting the 21 year old in the wall and out of the race.
What this brought out was yet another caution, setting up a showdown between the top two Penske’s for the win, as the caution allowed for them to both take to pit road for tyres and fuel and still end up in first and second place respectively.
This time, it was Newgarden who would lead the field to green as a speedy 5.1 second stop allowed for him to jump ahead of his teammate.
Things went from bad to worse for Power as an excessively slow restart meant the field stacked up and Rossi ended up flying over the back of the 12 car. Both drivers got out of their car unharmed but were out of the race.
What this caused was the first red flag of the race with only eight laps to go. After an extensive clean up period, with multiple fingers pointed, there was still a race to be decided.
The deciding moments happened on the restart, instead of stacking up, Newgarden pinned the throttle early in the last corner, building an early gap McLaughlin would be unable to bridge.
In all the chaos, Linus Lundqvist snuck his way past Palou and Herta on the restart to pick up his second podium of the season.
The rest of the top five was completed by Palou in fourth and Herta in fifth. The same drivers now sit first and second in the championship, Palou first with a gap of more than a race win to Herta behind.
