Newgarden Grateful For Shot At A Third Straight Indy 500 Win
(Photo by James Black/Penske Entertainment)
By Dennis Krause
It took Josef Newgarden a frustrating 11 tries before winning his first Indianapolis 500 in 2023. Fast forward to this year, Newgarden is looking to do what no other driver in Indy history has done - win the 500 three times in a row.
Near the top of the speed charts Tuesday and, again, on Wednesday, it appears to bode well for Newgarden for both qualifying and the race.
“It's showing good signs to begin. It's a long process. You can have the quickest car in the field, and that doesn't mean you're going to win the race. I think it takes a lot of ingredients, clearly, to win at this place. I think we have a few of them that are starting to show themselves in favorable conditions.
“Right now I think the car is in a really good place. We just have to continue to go through the motions. Qualifying is going to be its own thing. We're going to find out exactly where everybody else is at as we get to Friday, and hopefully we'll be in a good spot there.
“Then the race will be a whole other animal, and we'll figure that out next weekend."
If the open test last month and the first couple of days of practice for this year’s race are any indication, Newgarden has a good chance of steering his No. 2 Shell V-Power NITRO+ Team Penske Chevrolet into victory lane, again, on Sunday afternoon, May 25th.
“Yeah, the great thing about the open test the last few years is you get this big head start coming into the month. If you are fortunate enough to show up with a pretty good car and get that dialed in in the test, then you don't have a lot of work to do by the time we get to this week.
“I feel like we got on top of the hybrid pretty quickly so far. This is only a certain set of conditions that I've felt. If it gets much hotter, say it's 85, 87 and the track temp shoots through the roof at 120, 125, you know, I think that changes the condition and feel of the car.
“I'm still open-minded that we don't have everything checked, but the early signs of where we're at I think is great. I think we're in a really good window. My car feels fantastic. That's only one piece of the puzzle.”
(Photo by Doug Matthews/Penske Entertainment
The hybrid system, introduced last summer in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, is the big, new variable teams are dealing with at Indy for the first time. According to Newgarden, it’s not only the extra horsepower boost that drivers are adjusting to - it’s also the weight of the unit itself that’s making the cars drive differently this year.
“The big reason it's driving differently is not necessarily the hybrid interacting with the car. It is the weight of the hybrid. That's where you are getting all the comments.
“Why is the car different? It is just the weight is up. You're 100, 110 pounds heavier. That's a lot of mass percentage-wise that you are adding to this car. It's saturating the tires more. It's just moving around. The CG (center of gravity) changes a little bit. It raises slightly. Your weight distribution is shifted depending on where teams are putting it. That's what people are trying to figure out right now.
“You add 100 pounds to this thing, it's almost like adding 200, 250 pounds to a stock car. If you said, Hey, guys, we're going to bolt 250 pounds to these stock cars, see what you think, I bet they would all go, Okay, this drives differently, and now we have to counteract it.
“The hybrid itself and the utilization, I have said this. I do think it's very important here. It's more important at this track than anywhere we've gone because of the drag level. We've not run in a superspeedway configuration yet with this hybrid, so it's very, very low drag on the cars. Because of that, they're very power-sensitive.
“Any time you use something to add power, you feel the magnification of it here more than anywhere else. When you are using the hybrid on the straightaway, it makes a very big difference.
“Where are you are regenerating it and where you are using it, to either pass or defend or for whatever situation, I think there's repercussions for burning it, and there's certainly reward for utilizing it correctly.”
(Photo by Paul Hurley/Penske Entertainment)
Newgarden won last year’s race in spectacular fashion, passing leader Pato O’Ward going into turn three on the final lap of the race. With the hybrid system, will that move be possible again this year?
“It seems possible. In my head, you know. I wanted to try some things out today, and itself, like, you probably need to park me, just let me sit out. I'm getting a little too excited out here. Things can work out here and be magical until they're not.
“It goes so quickly from fantastic to disaster, and you're just flirting with that line. I think the racing style is going to be very similar this year to what we saw last year. That's what the early indication advisory shown me.
“What I felt today, I don't think it will be a dramatic departure to what people saw at the end of the race last year, unless it's crazy hot. If we somehow get like a 90 degree day, super high track temp, that's just going to string the field out. You sort of can't do anything about that. It is what it is.
“I think if it's a normal, typical 75, 80 degree Indiana day, I think you're going to have a similar show to what we had last year, with the similar ability to do what you've seen.”
For all of his recent success at Indy, Newgarden has yet to win the pole for the big race. What would that mean to him if he were to win it this weekend?
“I don't know. I've never gone through it. I'll say this, though... I've talked about Indy as it's this magnification of the team effort more than anywhere else that we go, and I mean that.
“It's a team sport more than people realize when you watch racing. Indy is like the greatest example of it. Here more than anywhere else everything has to go perfectly as a team and a unit, and I think that's on the greatest display in qualifying.
“So when you qualify well here, it a reward for the total team. I think that's why you saw such satisfaction last year amongst the whole team. When you lock out the front row, I signed more front row photos than anything else for the team because that's gratifying for everybody involved. It shows the work that's been put in.
“I think from a team standpoint it's more satisfying. The win is still very much a big team thing, but you get a little more personal satisfaction out of it. Being on pole here, I would like to see it again for the team. I liked to see what happened last year for the team. It was really cool to see that in the garage. If we can do it again, I know what it's going to look like.”
(Photo by Chris Owens/Penske Entertainment)
As he prepares for a possible Indy three-peat, Newgarden cautions that he tries to never get ahead of himself by staying humble and not getting complacent.
“I almost think winning the race was more humbling for me. I feel just so grateful to have been here. I kind of got there 24 months ago. I was so enamored with trying to win in this race. It seemed like it was like a needed thing. Like you have to win here. Otherwise, your career is a failure. That's what people have always kind of painted it as. I think I got too consumed by it.
“Then winning it has just made it very gratifying. If anything, I just feel more thankful now to have been here. I've told people, too, if you focus on the end result, the winning the race, you're missing the point that you have already succeeded so much by just being here.
“You get here. You qualify. You're on the grid. You're already winning in so many ways. That's what I feel when I show up. I try and remind myself of that. It doesn't matter that we've won it a couple of times. I'm just still thankful to be here this year and to have another shot. That's what I'm focusing on is just the next opportunity, which we have in front of us right now.”
Dennis Krause has spent decades covering all forms of motorsports, including over 40 Indianapolis 500s, with stints at WIBA Radio, PIT PASS - Radio’s Premier Motorsports Magazine and Motorsports Minute. Follow him on X @DennisKrause500 or motorsportsminute.bluesky.social or motorsportsminute on Threads or MotorsportsMinute+ on Facebook.