Penske’s Scott McLaughlin earned a first oval IndyCar win and jumped from eighth to fifth in the championship in the process, as points leader Alex Palou crashed out with a rare mistake he called “unacceptable”.

A repaved track combined with the IndyCar hybrid’s race debut on an oval - plus new tyres and less downforce than was allowed at a recent test - ensured the race would be a dramatic first instalment of what's now a traditional double-header weekend.

A long early caution period turned it into a two-stop race with plenty of excitement-sapping fuel saving, but the championship leader’s crash - which handed his title rivals the chance to make big gains - and polesitter Colton Herta’s bad luck split the race wide open for an entertaining final quarter.

McLaughlin's first oval win

McLaughlin had bagged his first oval pole at Gateway in 2023, added a brilliant Indianapolis 500 pole earlier this year, and then shattered the lap record in qualifying for race two here at Iowa this weekend, having bagged second behind Herta for the start of race one.

Herta held the lead until the first round of pitstops, but McLaughlin assumed the lead from there and looked thoroughly untouchable, despite a flurry of late restarts.

It’s McLaughlin’s second win of a season that's featured massive ups as well as errors and bad luck, too.

“Get me a beer!” he joked after his sixth IndyCar win, before acknowledging he has to focus on starting Sunday's race from pole. “I can call myself an IndyCar driver now, I’ve won on an oval!” he added.

He jumps ahead of Andretti drivers Herta and Kyle Kirkwood in the standings, and sits 59 points behind Palou - a deficit that stood at 105 points at the start of the weekend.

Pato O’Ward and McLaughlin's Penske team-mate Josef Newgarden rounded out the podium.

Palou's 'unacceptable' error

The race and championship were absolutely flipped on its head when the crashing Palou came to a halt on the main straight on lap 177 of 250.