Josef Newgarden wins second straight Indy 500 in duel with Pato O'Ward

INDIANAPOLIS – It took him 12 years to win one, and just 12 month later, Josef Newgarden is a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. Nothing could stop him.

Not a missing strategist and lead engineer. Not a four-hour delay. Not two teammates edging him in qualifying. Not a four-hour delay for midday storms, and not a fiery Pato O’Ward taking the lead with less than one lap to go as he sought a break-through 500 win.

Unfazed by the leading Arrow McLaren rival as the pair battled down the backstretch for the final time, Newgarden stuck it on the outside of O’Ward and made it stick.

More: Pato O'Ward 'so f****** close' to 500 win, has to settle for second again.

Race recap: Newgarden repeats as Indy 500 champ; here's the finishing order

And as he did a year ago, Newgarden parked after his victory lap and stormed into the grandstands.

“Unbelievable! I love this crowd. I’m always doing that,” said Newgarden, seemingly predicting that Sunday’s 500 victory would not be his last.

But Newgarden had another message, too. After a month of virtually the entire paddock trashing the integrity of he and Team Penske for the team’s push-to-pass scandal that cost Newgarden his season-opening win, the newest multi-time 500 winner let out a snide jeer to those who had questioned him.

“They can say whatever they want at this point. I don’t even care anymore,” said Newgarden, who picks up a $440,000 bonus from BorgWarner for going back-to-back at the 500 for the first time in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing in more than 20 years. “I’m so proud of this team. They crushed it. They came here with the fastest car and worked their tales off.

“(Suspended engineer Luke Mason) and (suspended strategist and team president Tim Cindrdic) aren’t here today, but they’re a huge part of this. I’m just so proud of everybody at team Penske. That’s the way I wanted to win the thing right there.”

Chaotic start eliminates 10 cars

Extremely high levels of modern-day Indy 500 attrition, many in single-car incidents, left just 23 cars running at the checkered flag.

It started just a single turn into the race, as rookie Tom Blomqvist drifted down too low, lost traction and spun up the track. The Meyer Shank Racing driver caught Marcus Ericsson with nowhere to go. In the scramble to avoid the main carnage, Pietro Fittipaldi got into the side of Callum Ilott, eliminating Fittipaldi.

During that first caution, Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Marcus Armstrong bowed out with the first of three likely blown engines from the Honda camp. The second of those came on Lap 24, with the smoke billowing out the back of Katherine Legge’s Dale Coyne Racing machine. The third blown Honda engine came on Lap 56, eliminating Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist.

What followed was a series of single-car accidents from CGR rookie Linus Lundqvist (Lap 28), Colton Herta (Lap 86), Ryan Hunter-Reay (Lap 107), Marco Andretti (Lap 114) and Will Power (Lap 147). Among them, Herta suffered minor damage and might’ve been able to drive his No. 26 Honda back to pitlane, but unbuckled and climbed out of his car. By the time Andretti Global received his car, pushed it back to the garage, fixed it and got him back out, the young American had lost more than 15 laps.

Serious contenders emerge

With the lead-pack split in two by the chaotic number of cautions – O’Ward, Dixon and others on one, and another paced by Newgarden, McLaughlin, Rossi and Palou at its front – Power’s crash brought the field back together. The accident seemed to favor the latter group that was on a massive fuel-save at the time. All a sudden, the leaders just needed to make one more stop.

Just ahead of the top-10’s final planned stop, the order was: O’Ward, Rossi, Dixon, Newgarden, Palou, McLaughlin, VeeKay, Daly, Ferrucci and Kirkwood.

Rossi was the first to pit on Lap 169, followed by Newgarden, McLaughlin and Daly (all on Lap 171). Dixon, O’Ward and Castroneves popped in on Lap 172 to cap the final stops of the contending pack. Though Dixon seemed to stall momentarily leaving pitlane, he popped out ahead after they all cycled through. Over the ensuing 10 laps, the 2008 500 victor and last year’s winner traded the lead.

Rossi took the lead on Lap 188, but handed it back to Newgarden at the start of Lap 189, seemingly being implored by his strategist Brian Barnhart to save some additional fuel to get safely to the end, having been the first of the leaders to pit. And yet, the 2016 500 winner snagged it right back just past the start-finish line to mark just nine laps to go.

Newgarden, O'Ward duel to the line

Newgarden snagged the lead on Lap 194, and all a sudden, the race turned into a mano-e-mano battle between the defending winner and the driver who wanted it as much as any. For Laps 196 and 197, the pair traded the lead. At the start of Lap 198, O’Ward inched up but seemed to purposefully not overtake Newgarden – and did the same on Lap 199.

And then, with 2.5 miles to go, O’Ward swung around the outside of Newgarden into Turn 1. It turned out to be one straightaway too soon. Just a stone’s throw down the track from where Newgarden executed his race-winning last-lap pass of Ericsson a year ago, Newgarden did it again on O’Ward and drove it home.

As Newgarden stormed into the crowd, O’Ward was inconsolable, folded over the aeroscreen of his No. 5 Chevy.

“It’s just hard to put into words,” managed O’Ward, tears edging out the sides of his eyes. “I’m proud of the work we did today. There were some great back-and-forths, and some people drove like maniacs, too. No many near-race-enders, and so close again. So (expletive) close.

“I put that car through things I never thought I could handle and some how came out the other side. It’s just so painful. I put so much into it, and we were two corners short. This track owes me nothing, but it hurts. It’s always a heartbreak whenever you’re so close, and it’s not the first time, and you don’t know how many opportunities you’ll have.”

For the young Mexican driver’s consolation prize, Newgarden couldn’t have been more effusive in his praise for how the pair fought over the closing miles.

“Give it up to Pato. He’s such a clean driver, and it takes two people to make that work,” Newgarden said from Victory Podium. “It takes working with someone incredibly clean. He could’ve won this race, too.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Josef Newgarden wins second straight Indy 500 in duel with Pato O'Ward