Shortly after Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden performed a perfectly-executed “bump and run” Saturday to knock his teammate Simon Pagenaud out of the way with 31 laps to go in what proved to be the race-winning pass, the natural reaction was, “What does Roger Penske think about this?”

After all, the two drivers are battling for the championship and if Newgarden’s aggressive move in Turn 1 at Gateway Motorsports Park had failed and both drivers crashed, then Verizon IndyCar championship rival Scott Dixon would have likely won the race and dramatically closed the gap in the battle for the championship.

Newgarden went on to win Saturday night’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Valvoline in the first IndyCar Series race at Gateway since August 10, 2003.

And Penske was all smiles after watching two of his four drivers engage in a fierce battle for the victory.

Pagenaud called it a “NASCAR move.” Penske would have been proud if that moved had been made by Brad Keselowski or Joey Logano in NASCAR but instead it came from the 26-year-old, first-year Penske driver from Hendersonville, Tennessee – Newgarden.

“That was either Brad Keselowski or Dale Earnhardt or something, but that was some real racing,” Penske told Autoweek. “These guys are racing hard and at the end of the day you have to get through. It was a good pass. They touched a little bit but hey, we’ll work it out, I’m sure.

“I told the guys when there are 30 or 40 laps to go it’s up to each other to take care of themselves.

“I think this shows just how good Josef is but Simon was driving a great race, too. It was a little bit of everything. It was terrific. It sounds like the fans really liked it.”

Saturday night’s race drew a jam-packed crowd on the frontstretch grandstands and was estimated between 30,000 to 40,000 fans. The large grandstand between Turns 1 and 2 was not open but it was a large and enthusiastic crowd that saw Newgarden save the show with his aggressive pass.

Pagenaud, however, was furious that his teammate bumped him out of the way to win the race. Pagenaud had to work very hard by slowing down and working the steering wheel to stay out of the wall.

Dixon passed Pagenaud to finish second by 0.6850-seconds and respected the fact the rival Team Penske operation does not believe in “team orders.”

It would have been easy to have both drivers settle for a 1-2 finish but only true racers compete at Team Penske and the team owner wouldn’t want it any other way.

It was Newgarden’s fourth win this season and his third win in the last four races. It increased his lead in the Verizon IndyCar Series standings to 31 points over Dixon, 42 over Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves and 43 over Pagenaud.

Rival driver Dixon applauded Newgarden’s aggressiveness and that he can do that by his IndyCar Series operation at Team Penske.

“It was exciting to watch that pass into Turn 1,” Dixon said. “I was hoping it would go different than it did. I’ve seen Team Penske teammates do that before and at times it has helped us in our championship points. They race very hard and it’s nice to see they are allowed to do that at Team Penske. It’s great for everybody around here.

“It was tight confines there and it was pretty lucky they were able to pull it off.”

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