Josef Newgarden has stormed to a dominant victory at the Honda Indy 200 around the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, with the Penske racer assuming the lead in the drivers’ championship by seven points to team-mate Helio Castroneves.
Despite starting from second position Newgarden looked feisty from the green flag, storming up the inside of team-mate and pole sitter Will Power at Turn 4 during the early stages of the race.
From there Newgarden was in a class of his own, only losing the lead during the three rounds of pit-stops to Power and Graham Rahal.
Although Power started from pole position he was forced to settle for P2, just over five seconds adrift of Newgarden.
The 2014 champion battled with Rahal throughout the majority of the race after losing the lead, with Rahal initially performing the undercut on the Penske racer after the first round of pit-stops.
However, Power soon muscled his way back up to P2 and managed to defend heavily at several stages in the race to keep track position.
Rahal eventually ended the race just over a second behind Power in P3, narrowly ahead of reigning champion Simon Pagenaud who enjoyed a competitive race despite starting from P7.
Takuma Sato could only manage fifth after starting from P3, with the reigning Indianapolis 500 winner initially losing out to Rahal during the early stages of the race before then losing a position to Pagenaud in the pits.
Alexander Rossi was P6 for Andretti Herta Autosport, after an action-packed race which saw him controversially make contact with team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay.
The 2012 champion was tipped into a spin and lost several key positions, however the race stewards elected to take no action.
Castroneves was seventh for Penske, with the Brazilian veteran remaining well within the title fight despite not troubling the leaders.
Meanwhile Hunter-Reay managed to reclaim several positions after his spin to finish a respectable P8, ahead of four-time champion Scott Dixon.
The Ganassi racer entered the weekend as the championship leader, but endured a race to forget with handling issues and pit-stop woes forcing him to settle for damage limitation in ninth.
Conor Daly rounded out the top ten for A.J. Foyt Racing, after a late move on James Hinchcliffe at Turn 4.
The race was interrupted by only one caution period, after rookie Ed Jones lost control of his car on the exit of Turn 9 and spun onto the grass.
As ever the Holmatro Safety Team were immediately on the scene, re-starting the Dubai-born British racer and enabling him to finish the race in last position, albeit two laps off the leaders.
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