A look at the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto lap chart shows Team Penske held fourth, fifth, and seventh positions on the 76th lap of the 85-lap NTT IndyCar Series race.
Come lap 77, the race went from green to yellow due to Penske’s fifth-place Will Power making an overly ambitious passing attempt at Turn 5 on teammate Scott McLaughlin. The lunging maneuver crashed McLaughlin out of fourth, and the team’s day began to spiral.
Lapping in his ill-gotten fourth under caution, Power circulated around and found McLaughlin, who waited at the corner, giving him a salty round of applause as he drove by. McLaughlin would see a near-podium turn into 16th.
The next entry on the lap chart is found on lap 81 when Power was invited by race control to perform a drive-through penalty for the race-ending hit on McLaughlin, which turned his fourth into a 12th as the last car on the lead lap.
Penske’s Josef Newgarden was the team’s final hope and had seventh in hand—likely sixth with Power’s penalty—but in the Turn 5 panic to avoid the crashing McLaughlin, cars slowed in front of Newgarden, who slowed as well, and he was hit from behind by David Malukas, which punctured a rear tire.
Forced to pit lane for a fresh set of Firestones, Newgarden returned to finish 11th, best among the misfortune-riddled Penske trio. From having three cars headed for a top seven to all three relegated to 11th through 16th, a good day turned bad for three of IndyCar’s best.
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“I never want to run into a teammate,” Power said. “That is not something I ever set out to do and I apologize to Scott and his team for knocking them out of the race. We were both in a position to have a solid day against the two Andretti cars and I knew I had a better tire situation than Scott. Unfortunately, we got together and gifted (championship leader Alex) Palou too many points.”
McLaughlin was understandably unamused.
“It’s a low-percentage move when probably we’re both going to have a pretty good day,” he said. “He’s come from a long way back, and it’s just hard to stop, isn’t it? Do you do that to a teammate? I don’t know. I get we’re racing for a championship, but when we’re both ahead of Palou, it’s just a low percentage move. It’s contact with a teammate. You never want to see that.”
Newgarden’s season of extreme highs and lows continued, starting with a loose wheel on his first stop that took him out of podium contention.
“That’s just kind of how our year has gone, unfortunately,” he said. “This crew has been so solid all year long but we just had a communication issue on the first stop. Happens to everyone, but we managed it well and fought back to get in position for a top-five finish before the late-race issue. Our Chevy had been really good all weekend long. We’ll bounce back in St. Louis next month and push strong to the end of the season.”