Josef Newgarden has figured if his team could get him out front, his first IndyCar victory in Texas would follow.
The first three-time winner in the series this year was right, despite Alexander Rossi doing all he could to prove his fellow American wrong.
Newgarden held off several late challenges from Rossi, eventually getting some separation over the final few laps to give Team Penske its 14th victory in the past 19 Texas races on Saturday night.
Graham Rahal finished third, rookie Santino Ferrucci fourth and Ryan Hunter-Reay fifth.
Australian Will Power, Newgarden’s teammate, finished ninth.
The 13th career win for Newgarden was set up when he stayed on the track longer than the other leaders before the final pit stop with a green flag with about 50 laps remaining on the 1.625km track.
Newgarden emerged as the surprise leader and held on after a wreck that knocked out defending Texas champion Scott Dixon, who got tangled with 19-year-old Colton Herta with 20 laps to go.
Dixon ended up 17th and Herta 18th.
“I’m telling you, if you look at those five or so laps I pumped out,” said Newgarden, who won the season opener at St. Petersburg and again last weekend in the first of two in Detroit.
“I knew it. I was like, ‘Man, we’re going to have a good set of laps here to pump out and just jump everybody.’ That’s what we did. It was really well-executed. It was really well-planned.”
Pole-sitter Takuma Sato led the first 60 laps before a disastrous pit stop under a green flag resulted in the Japanese driver going four laps down.
Sato slid through his pit stall and hit crew member Chris Welch as the car ended up in the next stall.
In addition to all the time lost from the long pit stop, Sato was assessed a stop-and-go penalty for hitting Welch and finished 15th.
The win allowed Newgarden to extend his championship lead to 25 points over Rossi after nine of 17 races with Power in sixth place.
The series takes a week off after running three consecutive weekends before going to Road America on June 23.