Australia’s Will Power has bounced back from an unfortunate exit in the opening race to claim second place behind Penske teammate Josef Newgarden in race two of the Indycar double-header in Newton, Iowa.
Newgarden, who started on the pole, thought he had the best car in the opener on Friday night, and he was irate when a series of misfortunes left him fifth and well back of winning teammate Simon Pagenaud.
But the two-time series champion left little to chance in Race 2 on Saturday night, leading just about all of the 250 laps for his 15th career victory and first since last year’s race at Iowa.
Power was forced out of race one when his car lost a wheel and he crashed hard in to the wall of the oval circuit.
But he claimed his second top-5 finish of the season when runner up to Newgarden in race two, with Graham Rahal third for his first podium in more than a year.
“It feels good just to have a solid day,” said Power, who doused himself with bottled water after stepping from the car on a night where the heat index hovered around triple digits.
“We’d loved to have the win, of course, but seeming like if you do a good job in this series you get screwed.
“I’m glad for once we actually got a good result out of it.”
Team Penske has 13 drivers completing in five series across two continents this weekend. Pagenaud and Newgarden were joined in victory lane by Scott McLaughlin in Supercars in Australia and Austin Cindric in the Xfinity race at Texas with Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano starting the Cup Series race on Sunday.