Ed Carpenter continues strong oval season with top-five at Iowa

Ed Carpenter continues to be the most consistent and successful oval racer in the IndyCar Series right now, using the final green flag stint to move into the top-five and score his best-career finish at Iowa Speedway on Sunday -- a fourth-place result.

In four oval starts this season, Ed Carpenter has an average finish of eighth. He’s averaged just an 18.3 in the other events this season on road and street courses.

Sunday featured another strong run on an oval for Carpenter, leading 18 laps after stretching his fuel on the right before last stint. He surrendered the lead on lap 214 for his final pit stop but was delayed in his box and fell back to 10^th -- giving up all the positions he had gained by staying out.

But Carpenter would gain six spot over the final 36 laps and battle back to fourth, passing Graham Rahal for the position with just two laps to go.

The owner-driver says he is content to score a top-five but wishes he and the team had been a little bit more aggressive with their early race set-up.

“We made all of the right changes late and we were fast at the end,” Carpenter said. “I think we had a car fast enough to win today but our last green flag pit stop didn’t go as well as we wanted... Overall, we still got a Top-5 finish today, so it wasn’t a bad day for us.”

Next up for Carpenter and the IndyCar Series is Pocono International Raceway, a track similar in structure to Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- where he scored a pole and top-10 in the 500-mile Race last month.