Winners and Losers from IndyCar’s 2025 Iowa Speedway weekend

The NTT IndyCar Series continued its busy summer slate this weekend with a doubleheader at Iowa Speedway. It started with scary storms, but those gave way to two beautiful (if hot) days of action on Saturday and Sunday.

With two races to contest, opportunities were doubled for everyone in the field. Some had mixed days, others made the most of the twin opportunities and a few left Iowa eager to move on to Toronto after two afternoons of misery.

Here are the winners and losers from IndyCar’s Iowa doubleheader, the Synk 275 powered by Sukup on Saturday and the Farm to Finish 275 on Sunday.

Winner: Chevrolet gets to victory lane

It took four months and 11 races, but Chevrolet finally has an IndyCar winner in 2025.

The Bowtie Brigade showed out on Saturday, sweeping the top four spots between Pato O’Ward and Team Penske’s trio of drivers. Josef Newgarden was the dominant driver on the day, but it was O’Ward that secured the victory after his Arrow McLaren team snagged the lead in the closing stages with an overcut during the final round of pit stops.

It was the first victory for both O’Ward and the manufacturer overall since he and Scott McLaughlin swept the Milwaukee Mile doubleheader for Chevrolet on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 2024.

Winner and Loser: A tale of two days for Team Penske

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

How quickly fortunes can change. Team Penske did everything short of win on Saturday, taking second, third and fourth with its three drivers at race’s end. Newgarden dominated before getting passed through pit strategy by O’Ward. Will Power drove a measured race to third, while Scott McLaughlin stormed from 27th to fourth.

It was disappointing to fall short of victory – particularly for Newgarden, who was understandably frustrated. But Penske had shown genuine pace without any issues for the first time all year and had reason to believe Sunday could fair even better.

Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

But any optimism – and the company’s reprieve from its dismal 2025 campaign – would prove to be short-lived. McLaughlin got caught up in a lap 1 crash on Sunday when Devlin DeFrancesco spun out ahead, collecting McLaughlin on their way out of the race.

Power suffered an early engine failure. Newgarden took the lead and overcame an untimely yellow that trapped him in 13th to retake the top spot late only to have another caution after a stop relegate him to 10th at race’s end. Just one of those days.

Loser: Nolan Siegel misses out on a great opportunity

Nolan Siegel, Arrow McLaren

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Lumen via Getty Images

It’s been a tough year for Nolan Siegel and the No. 6 Arrow McLaren team. The 20-year-old has endured his share of struggles and rarely been in the mix with his teammates. But Siegel ran a solid fourth last week at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and kicked off the Iowa weekend with two top-10 qualifying efforts.

The best of those was a fifth-place starting spot for Sunday. But Siegel never got to take advantage of it. The Californian backed into the turn 4 wall on Saturday and suffered a mild concussion that sidelined him for Sunday’s weekend finale. Arrow McLaren withdrew the car and the No. 6 team was left with little to show from a promising weekend.

Tough break. Hopefully Siegel is back and healthy next weekend in Toronto.

Winner: Alex Palou does it again

Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

Because of course he did. Palou surged to the pole for the second race and, with the aid of two cautions that trapped Newgarden and David Malukas in the field, snagged his second oval victory and seventh 2025 win on Sunday. Considering he just gave a win away a week ago, it’s likely he didn’t feel too bad about it, either.

Palou also finished fifth on Saturday. So any hopes of a championship battle this year are fading fast. Seems it’s just Palou’s year.

Loser: Andretti Global has a weekend to forget

Colton Herta, Andretti Global

Photo by: Geoff Miller / Lumen via Getty Images

There was a time when Andretti Global saw ovals as an opportunity to strike and secure wins. The company even prevailed the last time out on an oval with Kyle Kirkwood. But the Iowa weekend was a write-off for the entire company.

Nobody on the team finished better than 13th-place Colton Herta on Saturday – and Herta had to rally from 23rd after a miserable qualifying effort. The company’s championship hopeful, Kyle Kirkwood, suffered a flat right-front tire and ended up out early in 26th.

The team did play a role in the fight for the win on Sunday, but not in a positive way. Marcus Ericsson and Herta both suffered right-front tire failures, bringing out the cautions that hampered Newgarden and Malukas. Kirkwood avoided another shunt, but was on an alternate strategy that was also impacted by Herta’s crash. He ended up 18th at race’s end and back to fourth in the championship standings.

Winner: Late caution aids Honda stars

Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

With better fuel mileage than their bowtie-branded rivals, Honda’s top runners caught a big break when Herta crashed late in Sunday’s race. Scott Dixon and Marcus Armstrong were behind Palou and also hadn’t stopped, helping them leap past Chevrolet’s top stars ahead of the final 11-lap sprint.

The pair held onto their podium spots from there, with Dixon securing a Chip Ganassi Racing 1-2 in second and Armstrong giving Meyer Shank Racing a much-needed result in third. Armstrong’s effort was his best of the year, continuing a quiet streak of consistency that’s seen him secure top-10s in six-straight races and seven of the past eight events.

Loser: David Malukas loses a shot to win

David Malukas, A. J. Foyt Enterprises, Will Power, Team Penske

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Lumen via Getty Images

Overshadowed by the general dramatics of Newgarden’s day was the fact that Malukas had cycled out ahead of him during the final round of pit stops. After running in the top-three for the bulk of the day, the Dale Coyne Racing ace had followed Newgarden through to second when he overtook Palou and then used the undercut to sneak back by the Penske star heading into the race’s final 20 laps.

There’s a real chance that could have put Malukas in position to score his first win if stops cycled through completely. Pato O’Ward thought as much after coming out third of those that had stopped. But we’ll never know for sure after Herta’s caution.

To his credit, Malukas still rallied to finish fourth and wasn’t upset afterward. “That’s just the way IndyCar is,” he said. “It’s part of the game.”

Winner: The paddock dodges worst weather risks on Friday

Friday didn’t go to plan for the IndyCar field. The bulk of the planned track time was washed out by storms and the industry found itself listening to the ominous wail of tornado warning sirens instead of the familiar whirl of the pack at pace.

Thankfully, nothing happened — it could have been so much worse. Without any designated storm shelters available, most could only watch as scary clouds rolled by just down the road.

Thankfully, nothing outside of lost track time came from the storms.

Loser: Race fans take the week off

Look: there are many factors that likely contributed to this. NASCAR’s brought the Cup Series to the track and become its biggest draw. Hy-Vee is no longer a title sponsor of the weekend, which means there are no massive concerts, major promotion efforts or other unique incentives. Changes to the track and car don’t seem to have aided IndyCar’s product, though this weekend’s racing was generally solid.

But it’s hard to feel good about the future of IndyCar at Iowa – or on most ovals, really – when you see a crowd like this shortly before the green flag.

Photos from IOWA – Race 2