On the evidence of last weekend, IndyCar short oval races should exclusively be held at night because, wow, Gateway was one of the best we can remember for a while.
It had a bit of everything but, mainly, it was a two-wide race track for the whole race and overtaking was not easy: just the right amount of possible but difficult.
Those overtaking opportunities, combined with a leading team losing all three cars, and a late caution offering a wide array of strategies just made it fascinating to watch.
Here are our winners and losers.
Loser: Will Power
Power is arguably one of the biggest storylines in IndyCar right now, and he was front and centre in this race again.
At the last event he sparked controversy by ramming Kyle Kirkwood, but at Gateway he reinforced his status as IndyCar's best ever qualifier, taking his first pole since Iowa in July 2023.
Will Power is in the WALL! 😬 pic.twitter.com/yaqb4mwW6z
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) June 16, 2025
In the race, Power was jumped early on by David Malukas - who people continue to suspect will replace Power at Penske next year - but just sat saving fuel as planned in second until his tyre failed on lap 48 and he smashed the wall.
Power is out of contract at the end of the year. He might be coming towards the end of his career but he is Penske's most recent champion and a series legend. When asked by The Race if there was any update on his future, he said "nothing has changed" and suggested we wouldn't know his fate until after the season has finished.
So he'll continue to be making headlines through the rest of the season until his situation is resolved.
Winner: Kyle Kirkwood
Helping a bit with job security was one of the first things Kirkwood stated when he won his first IndyCar oval race on Sunday.
The fact that that was one of his first thoughts shows how important it is for an IndyCar driver to notch an oval win, which is also topical because of Alex Palou netting his first left-turn-only victory in the Indianapolis 500 last month.
Kirkwood is so far from needing job security though. If not for an Andretti rule breach at the Indy 500 he would be second in the championship and only 51 points behind the driver who has won five of the first eight races, Palou. In simple terms, that's only just a bit more than another race win's worth of points behind.
Finally, he has now won on something other than a street course. Things are really trending in the right direction for Kirkwood, who has always had the speed, but is now adding the consistency and variety to his displays.
Loser: Team Penske
Another oval race, another seemingly certain Josef Newgarden win snatched away from him.
Along with Power - and McLaughlin, who retired late on with a mechanical failure, which was possibly suspension related - it just wasn't to be for the Penske trio in a race they should have dominated on speed alone.
Newgarden was leading and looking great until rookie Louis Foster hit the wall and spun across the track in front of him. That left Newgarden with nowhere to go, and he smashed into the out-of-control Rahal car and the inside wall almost at the same time.
It sent Newgarden upside down with sparks flying across the circuit.
After this nightmare, incredibly the two-time champion is a lowly 14th in the points.
Winner: Prema Racing
Robert Shwartzman boosted his rookie of the year chances by bagging Prema's best IndyCar finish to date with 10th.
If you'd have told us before the campaign Prema's best performances would come on ovals in its maiden season, we'd have laughed at you. But as its Indy 500 pole demonstrated, ovals are one area it has invested in heavily to get the right people in place, knowing it had no expertise here.
Signing Robert Gue from McLaren might have been missed or underappreciated at the time, but it's clear he's been a massive steal for this programme as its head of R&D, and having ace SpaceX engineer Eric Leichtle return to work with Shwartzman - as was the case for Prema's Indy 500 pole - for the rest of the ovals is massive.
Ultimately, both Shwartzman and Callum Ilott gambled with a late stop that initially took them out of the running but, as others ahead pitted before running out of fuel, they came back into contention.
It looked like Ilott might win the race for a moment before he needed a late stop for more fuel and dropped to 18th - still his best result of the year, which given his own performances is a travesty - while Shwartzman sealed a brilliant top 10.
Loser: Rahal Letterman Lanigan
Yet more short oval struggles for RLL.
Foster was a bright spark - as he has been many times this season - until he got too high and crashed. Having been taken out of another good result in Detroit by suspension failure last time out, this was a continuation of his 2025 woes despite being excellent in qualifying generally.
Graham Rahal looked like he was driving an Indy NXT car for most of the race, and Devlin DeFrancesco crashed alone in the first few laps.
A race it won in 2019, the team couldn't have looked further away from repeating that here.
Winner: Christian Rasmussen
It's been a tough sophomore year for Rasmussen, who has been outshone by team-mate Alexander Rossi comfortably. But Rasmussen has also gone unrewarded and under the radar, losing some better results this year.
You might be forgiven for thinking he'd fluked his first ever podium on strategy given he started 25th (and seven of the cars in the top 10 started outside of it). But this drive was purely on merit.
The car had been poor in practice one but Ed Carpenter Racing found the sweet spot for the race, and despite literally leaving the pits on fire and needing an extra stop because of a fuel issue earlier in the race, Rasmussen simply drove back through.
On an oval especially, Rasmussen looks like one of those drivers who puts absolutely everything on the edge, which is a very high-risk strategy that can make you look like a genius or have you end up in the wall as a villain. Cautiousness usually prevails on a short oval.
Thankfully for Rasmussen, his ragged approach paid dividends here.
Shout-outs also go to the other low starters/high finishers. Santino Ferrucci, Conor Daly and Rinus VeeKay finished fifth, sixth and seventh having started 19th, 15th and 18th respectively.
That's Ferrucci's third straight top five and Daly's best result of the season, and a rebound for VeeKay from a tough Indy 500 and failure after qualifying seventh at Detroit. He really ought to be in the top 10 in the points which is incredible for a Dale Coyne team that's on an upwards trend this year.
