Last weekend, Penske Racing cars led both races at Detroit for most of the day and seemed in position to win when the final caution flew. One race fell apart for Will Power when his car failed to re-fire after a red flag. The other saw Josef Newgarden, on old tires, passed late by Patricio O’Ward. Today, Josef Newgarden either led or effectively led on strategy every single lap of the race at Road America before a caution came out with four laps to go. On a smaller track, that would end the race under yellow. Here, it meant one more restart.
Newgarden had a difficult easy race. He had a minor mechanical issue early, something he briefly thought would force him into an emergency shift mode that would require him to manually rev match on downshifts. That proved to be a non-issue early, but then the timing of cautions and seemingly inferior fuel mileage for the Chevrolet-powered cars forced him to save fuel throughout the second half of the race. The final caution guaranteed his window, but the transmission glitch popped up again on the final restart. For the full story, check out this article from Road & Track.
