Newgarden and Chip Ganassi Racing rival Scott Dixon arrived at Laguna Seca with a 20-point deficit to championship leader Will Power. But hopes of closing the deficit to Power by landing the bonus point for pole were dashed in Q1 when Newgarden, setting a banker lap, clipped the triangular device that IndyCar has installed on the

The American and his dad Bryan, who looks after his son’s interests and runs his IndyCar strategy from the Andretti Autosport pit stand, are awaiting a decision from the FIA regarding a superlicence request. Colton Herta has 32 of the requisite 40 points on the FIA’s system, which means he falls short of automatically getting

In the pole position shootout, Alexander Rossi and Callum Ilott hit the track early on used alternate tyres, while Power went out on primaries but then came straight back in and sat on pitlane, giving himself only one shot at pole. Romain Grosjean was the first driver into the 1m11s to go fastest, but he

Colton Herta had worked down to a 1m12.9450s in his Andretti Herta Autosport, when Graham Rahal spun his Rahal Letterman Lanigan exiting the top of the Corkscrew and stalled, causing a red flag. Juncos Hollinger Racing’s rookie Callum Ilott delivered a 1m12.34s, then a 1m11.9899s to go top ahead of fellow rookies David Malukas and

During and after Formula 1’s grand prix at Zandvoort last weekend, there were some feverish minds at work. First came the asinine accusations that AlphaTauri deliberately fouled Yuki Tsunoda’s car to cause a virtual safety car that would help Max Verstappen’s cause. As Tsunoda stated on Thursday at Monza, rumourmongers should “scan the MRI and see

Sordo, who has over 20 years of engineering experience in Formula 1, will join the team co-owned by Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan on 1 October. Sordo spent the past six seasons with McLaren Racing F1 as head and director of vehicle performance and, prior to that, spent 10 seasons with Red Bull

IndyCar front-runner Herta has emerged as a contender for a seat at AlphaTauri for next season, with Red Bull eager to tap in to the impact his switch to F1 could have on the American market. But with Herta not having enough superlicence points to automatically receive an entry, this comes with efforts from the

With Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon having clawed his way up to third it was assumed by some – including the Kiwi six-time champion – that Team Penske would go against its openly stated convention of letting its drivers race, and ask long-time leader McLaughlin to move aside for the closely following Power to maximise his

McLaughlin, who scored his third win of the season last Sunday at Portland, arrives at the 2022 season finale at Laguna Seca lying fifth in the championship and still mathematically in title contention. He has made a huge leap in performance this year and, while he won the 2021 Rookie of the Year honours, the

The Andretti Autosport driver has been linked with a switch to F1 in 2023 and has been courted by AlphaTauri, as Pierre Gasly has been linked with a move to Alpine to replace Fernando Alonso, but Autosport understands he will only be allowed to move on if a superlicence for Herta is granted. Herta is

Although he lost ground on long-time rival, Team Penske’s Will Power in the points race by finishing right behind him in the Grand Prix of Portland, Dixon has overcome theoretically bigger points deficits with one round to go and claimed the championship. Although the 2015 finale at Sonoma Raceway was worth double points, Dixon was

After finishing runner-up in Portland, Power heads to next week’s season finale at Laguna Seca with a 20-point lead over team-mate Josef Newgarden and Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s Scott Dixon, with race winner McLaughlin still in the hunt, albeit 41 points adrift. After following McLaughlin to the chequered flag, while title rival Dixon recovered from 16th

Polesitter McLaughlin dominated the race, leading 104 of the 110 laps, to score his third win of the 2022 season. It was enough to keep the New Zealander in the title race ahead of next weekend’s Laguna Seca decider, 41 points shy of Power.  A late caution caused by a clash between Rinus Veekay and

McLaughlin, a rank outsider in the points race with a 54-point deficit to Power heading into the final two races, pipped Newgarden by 0.078s in the decisive Fast Six session to secure the top spot – although a six-place grid penalty for Newgarden’s engine change will drop him to eighth on the grid. Points leader

All three Penske drivers ducked under the FP1 benchmark set by Newgarden during a session blighted by several red flags, including an 80-minute delay for a fallen trackside screen, but the best non-Penske entry in FP2 couldn’t match the double champion’s 58.576s Friday best. Colton Herta came closest to breaking the stranglehold for Andretti Autosport,

Newgarden currently lies second in the IndyCar drivers’ standings, three points behind leader Will Power after scoring a fifth victory of the season last time out at Gateway.  But the 2017 and 2019 series champion will lose six places from his qualifying position for this weekend’s Grand Prix of Portland due to an early change of

IndyCar’s 2022 Rookie of the Year contenders, Christian Lundgaard and David Malukas, have enjoyed a fascinating battle this year. Following the second Iowa race, in which Lundgaard’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda suffered a mechanical failure, and Malukas’ Dale Coyne Racing similarly-powered machine finished eighth, the pair were separated by just four points. Then Lundgaard delivered an

The first rule of racing, as we all know, is never take out your team-mate, and it would take no more than two minutes to come up with a dozen examples when that was ignored with spectacular consequences. The rule becomes magnified when the drivers are frontrunners, magnified some more when the pair are fighting

Six-time champion Dixon entered the final oval race weekend of the season second in the standings, just six points behind series leader Will Power. But the Kiwi wasn’t in the reckoning for victory on what he described as “an average night”, with his efforts to pit early at each scheduled stop stymied by backmarkers. His