A clean start saw Dale Coyne Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais get away well ahead of Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud, but Andretti Autosport's Rossi got around Will Power to snatch third.

Behind, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ Wickens was being pursued by the fast-starting Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti) and Newgarden, as Hinchcliffe (SPM) fell back to eighth, just ahead of  AJ Foyt Racing’s Tony Kanaan and the Chip Ganassi Racing car of Ed Jones.

By Lap 15, Bourdais was lapping Max Chilton’s Carlin-Chevrolet, while Pagenaud was able to use Chilton as a brief buffer between himself and the closing Rossi and Power.

Charlie Kimball proved a much tougher prospect for Bourdais to lap, and now Pagenaud, Rossi and Power were within one second of him. 

However, on Lap 41 IndyCar debutant Pietro Fittipaldi (Dale Coyne Racing) slid up into the wall exiting Turn 4, and out came the yellow flag. The leaders had fallen to 160mph from best laps around the 177-78 mark, so the pitstops were inevitable.

Bourdais stopped too close to the wall and knocked over his left-front tire changer, thankfully without injury. Amazingly, Rossi did the same, and the pair fell to 13th and 19th respectively and would have to serve drive-through penalties which dropped them to the very back, two laps down. Pagenaud had also had a nightmarish stop and fell to 12th.

That left Power leading Newgarden, having gained three and five spots respectively, while Wickens was ahead of Hinchcliffe, followed by Jones, Hunter-Reay, Kanaan, Graham Rahal, Takuma Sato and Scott Dixon – up from 17th on the grid. However, on the restart, Ed Carpenter got around the Ganassi car.

The Lap 50 restart saw Power quickly build a 1.7sec lead as Wickens pressured Newgarden, chased hungrily by Hunter-Reay. By lap 64, Power’s lead was 2.5sec, but it reduced as he took his time getting around Chilton. So too, did Newgarden, which was just as well for Power as he couldn’t get around the other Carlin car of Kimball.

Again, all cars were down to 162mph as the tires went off, but there was little passing, suggesting everyone’s tires were going off at the same rate. It took until Lap 111 for Power to edge past Kimball, but he was immediately confronted by the tail of Spencer Pigot’s ECR-Chevy, with Gabby Chaves ahead.

Hunter-Reay was first of the front-runners to pit, on Lap 113, with Hinchcliffe and Carpenter following suit on 114, Wickens on 115, Dixon on 117, who also got a wing adjustment. With Pigot pulling onto pitlane, Power cut loose and pulled a major lead – 5sec – accentuated by Newgarden pitting.

Power didn’t pit until Lap 124, lucky that a yellow wasn’t thrown for Matheus Leist losing a wheel on pitroad.

The fast laps turned by the early stoppers paid off beautifully as Schmidt Peterson Motorsport ran 1-2, Hinchcliffe ahead of Wickens, with Hunter-Reay and Jones also ahead of erstwhile leader Power. Behind the 2014 champ, Newgarden ran sixth, ahead of Carpenter, Dixon, Kanaan, Rahal and Sato.

When Hinchcliffe lost momentum with a failed pass on Chaves’ Harding car, Wickens sliced past to take the lead on Lap 149. At the same time Power got around Jones for fourth – but when the charging lapped Rossi passed him, Power drifted up wide and pancaked into the wall. Rossi would go on to unlap himself from the Schmidt Peterson pair.

By Lap 170, with only 80 to go, Hunter-Reay was desperately trying to get past Hinchcliffe for second, but the pair of them had closed back on Wickens who was getting tangled in traffic.

Jones pitted on Lap 176, and rapidly the other front-runners covered him, the swiftest of these stoppers being Newgarden although he was warned he would need to save fuel. The driver who was really flying was Rossi, who whenever he had clean air was setting 172mph laps.

With Bourdais at last making his final scheduled stop on Lap 206, Newgarden was left one second ahead of front of Jones, Wickens, Hinchcliffe, Dixon, Hunter-Reay – and the incredible Rossi, who sliced by his teammate for sixth on Lap 210.

On Lap 229, Jones crunched #10 Ganassi into the Turn 4 wall, and that triggered Newgarden to hit pitlane – and the Schmidt Peterson pair and Rossi to stay out.

Newgarden, Dixon, Hunter-Reay, Carpenter, Kanaan, Rahal and Sato would line up behind and per IndyCar rules, the lapped cars were sent through pitlane to get out of the way of the leaders.

The green flag waved on Lap 243, and Newgarden zipped straight past Rossi and Hinchcliffe. Newgarden was all over the defensive Wickens and on Lap 247 he grabbed the lead around the outside of Turn 1. Wickens carefully brought it home second, just under three seconds behind, half a second ahead of Rossi.

Hinchcliffe fell back behind not only Rossi but also Dixon and Hunter-Reay, but the second SPM car took sixth ahead of Carpenter, Kanaan, Rahal and Pagenaud.

Newgarden’s thrilling victory was worthy of his status as defending champion, bringing his eighth IndyCar win and his third on an oval.

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Gap
1	1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	250 laps
2	6	Robert Wickens	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	2.9946
3	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	3.4890
4	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	3.8175
5	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	4.0122
6	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	9.4497
7	20	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	9.4731
8	14	Tony Kanaan	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	9.8650
9	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	10.1747
10	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	10.3247
11	30	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	10.9443
12	98	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport	1 lap
13	18	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	1 lap
14	21	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	1 lap
15	88	Gabby Chaves	Harding Racing	1 lap
16	26	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	1 lap
17	23	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	2 laps
18	59	Max Chilton	Carlin	3 laps
19	4	Matheus Leist	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	9 laps
20	10	Ed Jones	Chip Ganassi Racing	22 laps
21	32	Kyle Kaiser	Juncos Racing	76 laps
22	12	Will Power	Team Penske	97 laps
23	19	Pietro Fittipaldi	Dale Coyne Racing	210 laps