Only three races remain in the 2023 season and the next stop will be the final oval event on the calendar. The series will make the short trip to St Louis for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway. The two-day event will be busy with practice, qualifying, and final practice on Saturday, followed by a Sunday afternoon start. There have been ten IndyCar races on the 1.25-mile egg-shaped oval.
Josef Newgarden has owned this track in recent years. The Team Penske driver has won the last three races at Gateway and has won the last five oval races in the series. Had it not been for a mechanical failure at Iowa last year, Newgarden would have seven consecutive oval victories. He has four wins in seven starts, leading 484 total laps.
The race at Gateway has not been won from pole position since 2003 but every race since then has been won by a driver starting inside the top-five. Qualifying will certainly be important, which bodes well for Will Power. The all-time leader in poles has four of them at Gateway, and has never started outside of the first two rows. He earned pole position in both races at Iowa last month.
Pato O’Ward will be a driver to watch in this race, as he has finished 3rd, 2nd, 2nd, and 4th in his four starts. He has led 141 laps around the circuit but has never been to victory lane and is still searching for his first win this season. The entire Arrow McLaren organization remains winless this year, and O’Ward’s teammate Alexander Rossi has not been good on this particular track. Rossi’s last five finishes there are 13th, 22nd, 14th, 17th, and 25th with just four total laps led in seven starts.
Race weekend schedule (Eastern Standard Time)
Friday August 26
11:00 am – Practice
2:00 pm – Qualifying
5:45 pm – Final Practice
Saturday August 27
3:30 pm – Race
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Latest indycar News from Crash.net…