Robert Wickens scores podium finish in first oval race

Under the second and final caution of the night race in Phoenix, Team Penske elected to pit Josef Newgarden even though he was leading, in order to put him on new tires, leaving the Schmidt Peterson-Honda duo of Robert Wickens and James Hinchcliffe on old tires.

On Lap 247 of the 250-lap race, under green, the flying Newgarden Wickens at Turn 1 to take the lead and snatch victory on the one-mile oval. “We knew the whole time what we were doing, which is going for the win. We thought Josef would pit but Robert wanted to go for the win, understandably, and I knew if we pitted him that we’d have no chance. So we had to go for it,” said team co-owner Sam Schmidt.

“But hell - second place - not bad for a rookie, huh?” Schmidt added.

“James is taking the brunt of the work for us”

Despite missing out on victory, Wickens remained very positive about his performance.

“My goal coming into this was to finish every lap,” Wickens said. “Even on that last restart, leading, knowing there is only the three of us that stayed out, my thought process didn’t really change.Even if I finished fifth, I would have been kind of, well, a little bit disappointed but still happy that I got even a top five on my first oval race.”

A former DTM racer for Mercedes-Benz, Wickens also gave credit to teammate James Hinchcliffe and the Schmidt Peterson team for taking on a lot of the work as he adapts to IndyCar racing, and oval racing in particular.

“They’re carrying me,” Wickens said of Hinchcliffe and the SPM team. “It goes from my teammate [Hinchcliffe], both car crews, the 5 and 6, are doing such a strong job. James is taking the brunt of the work for us because he’s the one basically setting up the car because he has a lot more oval experience than me. I’m kind of doing the basic stuff, but he’s taking the job list of the tough things.”