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Josef Newgarden has taken a comprehensive victory in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio as Will Power finished second.
Newgarden takes over the series lead as Power and Graham Rahal rounded out the podium.
The #2 Team Penske Chevrolet driver ran close behind team-mate Power in the opening laps before catching the Toowoomba boy by surprise at Turn 4 on Lap 13.
Newgarden was unchallenged for the rest of the 90-lap race as he took a second straight race win and third of the season, but his first at Mid-Ohio.
In the final third of the race the only Caution of the day, to recover a stalled Ed Jones (Dale Coyne Honda), allowed Power to close back up on the 26-year-old race leader but cars #2 and #12 were split by the lapped Esteban Gutierrez.
As the race restarted, Gutierrez refused to give way and even tried to dive up the inside of Newgarden at Turn 4.
That allowed the leader to pull away and claim victory by more than five seconds as Power struggled to find a way past the Dale Coyne Honda driver.
Power did have to keep an eye on his mirrors though as Rahal, who took third place off Takuma Sato on Lap 15, tried to get up to second place with increasingly bold moves.
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda racer didn’t have sufficient Push to Pass in reserve to get enough of a run on Power to claim the position.
Simon Pagenaud (Team Penske Chevrolet) finished just off the podium in fourth, having started seventh, after a quick first pit stop on Lap 17 gave him enough time to bed in his red Firestone tyres and leapfrog Alexander Rossi and Scott Dixon.
Finishing just behind in fifth was Sato, who couldn’t replicate the pace he showed in qualifying as he was having to parry attacks from Andretti Autosport Honda team-mate Rossi.
Rossi showed strong race pace as he came up from ninth place at the grid to take sixth at the chequered flag.
Helio Castroneves (Team Penske Chevrolet) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport Honda) finished seventh and eighth, just ahead of previous series leader Dixon.
The Chip Ganassi Honda driver was struggling with serious oversteer in the first half of the race and lost time in the pits as his crew adjusted front-wing angles to try and cure the issue.
Rounding out the top 10 was AJ Foyt Chevrolet driver Conor Daly, who harried James Hinchcliffe (Schmidt Peterson Honda) for 10th in the closing laps of the race thanks to a bigger reserve of Push to Pass.
Newgarden’s win moves him from fourth in the Verizon IndyCar Series to the lead, Castroneves stays second, Dixon drops from first to third, and Power stays fifth but is now sightly closer to the top with four races remaining.
The next of those is the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway on August 19-20.
Results: Mid-Ohio
| Pos | Driver | Grid | C/A/E/T | Laps | Race time, gap | Laps led | Status | Pit stops |
| 1 | Josef Newgarden | 2 | D/C/C/F | 90 | 01:46:19.5989 | 73 | Running | 3 |
| 2 | Will Power | 1 | D/C/C/F | 90 | +5.1556 | 14 | Running | 3 |
| 3 | Graham Rahal | 4 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +6.3129 | 3 | Running | 3 |
| 4 | Simon Pagenaud | 7 | D/C/C/F | 90 | +6.8807 | – | Running | 3 |
| 5 | Takuma Sato | 3 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +7.3092 | – | Running | 3 |
| 6 | Alexander Rossi | 9 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +9.0266 | – | Running | 3 |
| 7 | Helio Castroneves | 5 | D/C/C/F | 90 | +11.6809 | – | Running | 3 |
| 8 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 10 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +12.3623 | – | Running | 3 |
| 9 | Scott Dixon | 6 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +18.1857 | – | Running | 3 |
| 10 | Conor Daly | 11 | D/C/C/F | 90 | +20.5661 | – | Running | 3 |
| 11 | James Hinchcliffe | 8 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +27.3241 | – | Running | 3 |
| 12 | Marco Andretti | 14 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +29.9928 | – | Running | 3 |
| 13 | Charlie Kimball | 13 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +31.1248 | – | Running | 3 |
| 14 | Mikhail Aleshin | 21 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +32.5958 | – | Running | 3 |
| 15 | Max Chilton | 18 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +33.1095 | – | Running | 3 |
| 16 | Tony Kanaan | 17 | D/H/H/F | 90 | +36.1997 | – | Running | 4 |
| 17 | JR Hildebrand | 19 | D/C/C/F | 90 | +1:00.8248 | – | Running | 5 |
| 18 | Carlos Muñoz | 20 | D/C/C/F | 89 | +1 lap | – | Running | 4 |
| 19 | Spencer Pigot | 16 | D/C/C/F | 89 | +1 lap | – | Running | 5 |
| 20 | Esteban Gutierrez (R) | 12 | D/H/H/F | 89 | +1 lap | – | Running | 4 |
| 21 | Ed Jones (R) | 15 | D/H/H/F | 88 | +2 laps | – | Running | 4 |
(C)hassis: D=Dallara | (A)erokit: C=Chevy, H=Honda | (E)ngine: C=Chevy, H=Honda | (T)yre: F=Firestone
Championship points
| Pos | Driver | Pts |
| 1 | Josef Newgarden | 453 |
| 2 | Helio Castroneves | 446 |
| 3 | Scott Dixon | 445 |
| 4 | Simon Pagenaud | 436 |
| 5 | Will Power | 401 |
| 6 | Graham Rahal | 395 |
| 7 | Takuma Sato | 381 |
| 8 | Alexander Rossi | 358 |
| 9 | Tony Kanaan | 320 |
| 10 | James Hinchcliffe | 316 |
| 11 | Max Chilton | 310 |
| 12 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 297 |
| 13 | Marco Andretti | 286 |
| 14 | Ed Jones | 285 |
| 15 | JR Hildebrand | 276 |
| 16 | Mikhail Aleshin | 237 |
| 17 | Carlos Muñoz | 236 |
| 18 | Charlie Kimball | 223 |
| 19 | Conor Daly | 199 |
| 20 | Spencer Pigot | 165 |
| 21 | Ed Carpenter | 142 |
| 22 | Sebastien Bourdais | 136 |
| 23 | Juan Pablo Montoya | 93 |
| 24 | Gabby Chaves | 83 |
| 25 | Esteban Gutierrez | 83 |
| 26 | Oriol Servia | 61 |
| 27 | Sebastian Saavedra | 52 |
| 28 | Fernando Alonso | 47 |
| 29 | Pippa Mann | 32 |
| 30 | Jay Howard | 24 |
| 31 | Zach Veach | 23 |
| 32 | Sage Karam | 23 |
| 33 | James Davison | 21 |
| 34 | Jack Harvey | 17 |
| 35 | Tristan Vautier | 15 |
| 36 | Buddy Lazier | 14 |
