The beautiful rolling hills of Mid-Ohio played host to the NTT IndyCar Honda 200. This weekend was the debut of the new hybrid engine for IndyCar which starts a new era for the IndyCar series. The 80 lap race around the 13-turn road course would test the adaptability and perseverance of drivers with a whole new power system and dueling strategies.

Alex Palou won the pole by the closest margin in the modern era as he looks to go three-for-three on road courses where he has won pole winning the previous two (including the last race at Laguna Seca). Outside pole was Patricio “Pato” O’Ward missing out on the pole by .0024 seconds. O’Ward, runner-up of the Indianapolis 500, will look to add a second win to his record for the year after Team Penske drivers Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin were disqualified.

Pato O’Ward Redeems Himself After Heartbreak Runner-Up Finish at Indy 500

O’Ward has been through a few turbulent weeks after be awarded the win at the season opener St. Petersburg as mentioned above. He has not finished better than eighth in the past three weekends and was looking to rebound at Mid-Ohio – and rebound he did. He started the weekend out by losing the pole by two-thousandths of a second but would end the weekend with the last laugh.

In a very odd start to the race, the race started under yellow flag conditions as six-time Mid-Ohio winner and Alex Palou’s teammate, Scott Dixon lost power on the pace laps. This meant that the first couple laps of the race were run under a yellow flag. On lap three, IndyCar officials made the call to start the race double-file and on the backstraight (where the start usually is) as opposed to a traditional restart which would be single-file and start at the official start/finish line.

The first half of the race saw O’Ward trying to chase down Palou with little to no success. Once both Palou and O’Ward went to the red alternate tires, O’Ward was able to close in on Palou. Cutting the lead down lap by lap, O’Ward came in to the pits on lap 55 and had no issues and came out of the pits to an open track. Palou came in a lap later but was delayed slightly getting out of his pit box allowing O’Ward to take the lead and Palou was never able to recover. O’Ward fended off a late push by Palou to secure his second win of the season and launch himself into third in the season standings, 70 points back of Palou.

Palou Can’t Capitalize on Dominate Run

Coming off a win two weeks ago at Laguna Seca, Palou came into the weekend with a 23 point lead over Will Power, and 32 point lead over teammate Scott Dixon. Winning the last race at Laguna Seca and winning at Mid-Ohio last year, Palou had a lot of momentum coming into the race. Starting the race from the pole, Palou was looking forward to dominating the race and extending his championship lead.  Unfortunately for him, he would only accomplish one of those this weekend.

As mentioned above, the start of the race was a little odd but once the green flag flew, it looked as though it would be all Palou all day. Palou dominated the first 50 or so laps of the race gapping second place O’Ward by as much as six seconds. The first round of pitstops brought forth two main strategies, the two-stop strategy and the three-stop strategy. Palou and O’Ward were in the two-stop camp while Newgarden and Chip Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong were in the three-stop camp. After the first round of stops, Palou, now on red alternates, still led the field by a wide margin but saw O’Ward quickly approaching as the second stop neared. An uncharacteristic mistake by Palou getting out of his box led to O’Ward passing him and securing the victory.

A silver-lining for Palou this weekend is that he still finished second, securing his eighth top five and fourth podium of the year. On top of that, he extended his championship lead to 48 points over Will Power. Rounding out the top five in the championship fight is Pato O’Ward (-70), Scott Dixon (-71), and Colton Herta (-80).

Hybrid Engine Makes Debut

Last month there was a test of the hybrid engine at the Milwaukee Mile and this week at Mid-Ohio the engine made its long awaited debut in the NTT IndyCar Series. The hybrid engine adds a whole new layer to the series giving the drivers even more power behind the wheel. With this new hybrid engine, drivers can now activate the electric motor giving them an extra 60 horsepower boost. This coupled with the Push-to-Pass system gives the driver the opportunity to have an extra 120 horsepower when using both systems together.

With this change, IndyCar joins the trend of motorsports going electric or having a hybrid option joining IMSA among others.

Storylines To Look Forward To

• Josef Newgarden’s cold streak continues after numerous mistakes at Mid-Ohio. Since winning the Indianapolis 500, Newgarden has finished 26th, 2nd, 19th. He finished in 25th today, which is the third time this year he has finished outside the top 20. His day can be summed up by the compiling of mistakes he made near the end of the race. Newgarden went wide into turn 11, likely damaging his car in the process. When he came to pit, he was caught speeding and then, while serving the penalty for speeding, got caught speeding again causing him to fall all the way back to 25th.
• Scott Dixon’s miserable day severely hurts championship hopes. It’s hard to imagine the day going worse for Dixon, who was one of the favorites this weekend due to his sheer dominance at Mid-Ohio in previous races. The day started with Dixon not even being able to take the green flag as his car lost power on the pace laps. Dixon, miraculously, was able to come out of the garage, but at 22 laps down, he was essentially running a practice session. Coming into the weekend he third in the standings, 32 points back of the championship lead. He now sits in fourth, 70 points back of Alex Palou.
• Kyle Kirkwood nabs fifth straight top 10, eighth of the season. While he remained largely an afterthought in today’s race, Kirkwood managed to keep his top five streak alive. Kirkwood now has eight top 10 finishes on the year, tied for the most in IndyCar with championship leader Alex Palou. Kirkwood currently sits sixth in the season rankings 95 points back of championship lead and 15 points back of Colton Herta for fifth.