NASHVILLE, Tennessee – It's hard to believe how a driver that won the Indianapolis 500 for the second year in a row would have a season he would like to forget, but that's the case with Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden in 2024.
There was the driver from Nashville, sitting on the podium after a third-place finish in the September 15 season-ending Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway looking forlorn.
Newgarden doesn’t climb into the No. 2 Chevrolet at Team Penske just to finish on the podium, he drives race cars to win races and championships.
When he won his second IndyCar championship in three seasons in 2019, he appeared to be on the cusp of dominating the series for many more seasons.
But it has been five years since Newgarden has won a championship, and this year, he wasn’t in contention for much of the season.
He finished eighth in the final 2024 standings, 143 points behind three-time IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou. His two teammates at Team Penske – Scott McLaughlin and Will Power – finished third and fourth respectively. Power entered the race weekend 33 points behind Palou and had a real chance of claiming his third championship in his career.
Instead of battling for a title, Newgarden was prepared to play “wingman” for Power’s effort for the championship.
That ended when Power’s restraining belt unbuckled, and he had to pit after just 13 laps. When he returned to the race, he was five laps down and finished 24th in the 27-car field.
Newgarden had the fastest car on the track at the end of the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, but it wasn’t enough for him to pass Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren for second place and race winner Colton Herta.
Herta’s No. 26 Gainbridge Honda for Andretti Global finished 1.8106 seconds ahead of O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet and 1.9611 seconds ahead of Newgarden.
“I don't know what we made up there in the last 25 laps, maybe 12 seconds or something,” Newgarden said afterward. “We'll digest that next week. Going to be a tough pill to swallow, but one we're going to have to swallow."
“It seems fitting for this year, I would say, the way this one shaped up for us. I'm going to be happy to leave all this in 2024."
“We're going to reset.”
Hard to consider a driver who won the Indianapolis 500 in back-to-back years needs a reset to the season, but Newgarden is so competitive he is only happy when he is winning races, or championships.
When Newgarden took the checkered flag in the March 10 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, he celebrated his 30th career IndyCar win. Most importantly, Newgarden was off to a great start to the season, one he believed would take him to his third career IndyCar Series championship.
But on April 24 – six weeks after Newgarden’s apparent victory at St. Petersburg – IndyCar officials disqualified Newgarden when it was discovered the team had manipulated the push-to-pass parameters. It was discovered Newgarden, and third-place finisher McLaughlin had used push-to-pass on starts and restarts, something prohibited by IndyCar rules. McLaughlin was also disqualified from his third-place finish.
Power’s car also had the manipulated software, but he did not use it improperly and he was fined, but not disqualified.
Newgarden became the first IndyCar winner to be disqualified since Al Unser, Jr. at Portland in 1995. Unser ultimately got his victory reinstated through appeal, but Team Penske accepted IndyCar’s penalties in the push-to-pass scandal.
Roger Penske, who owns IndyCar, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis 500 and Team Penske, suspended Team Penske President Tim Cindric, IndyCar Managing Director at Team Penske Ron Ruzewski, engineer Luke Mason and engineer Robbie Atkinson for the month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after an independent review of the race team was conducted.
Team Penske went on to have one of its most impressive Indianapolis 500s in years. The team swept the Front Row with Scott McLaughlin on pole, Will Power in the middle and Newgarden on the outside.
It was the second time in Indianapolis 500 history the same team claimed all three starting positions for the Indy 500. The last time was Team Penske in 1988 with Rick Mears on pole, Danny Sullivan in the middle and Al Unser on the outside of Row 1.
No driver had won the Indianapolis 500 in back-to-back years since Helio Castroneves in 2001-2002 until Newgarden on May 26. In one of the most thrilling Indy 500s in history, Newgarden and O’Ward fought it out to the very end with two passes for the lead coming on the final lap.
O’Ward raced past Newgarden’s Chevrolet down the long front straight into Turn 1 on the final lap, but by the time the two cars raced down the backstraight, Newgarden made the race-winning pass in Turn 3. He held it for two more corners and half a straightaway to win the 108thIndianapolis 500.
“When you look to the month of May, I don't think it could have gone any better,” Newgarden reflected to NBCSports.com. “Certainly, as a team, we executed on the highest level that we've been looking to do for the last four or five years."
“That was a big turnaround for all of us and personally it was very gratifying to be able to win a second Indy 500."
“From that standpoint, it's been a great year, excellent, excellent year, but when it comes to the championship, it's been the complete opposite.”
Newgarden misses being one of the drivers in the thick of the battle for the IndyCar Series Championship. He believes it’s harder to win that than it is to win the Indy 500 because it’s a season-long battle that showcases a racer’s ability on street courses, road courses, short ovals and superspeedways.
When he joined Team Penske in 2017, he won four races and the championship in his first season. He finished fifth the following year when he won three races but rebounded in 2019 with another four-win season and his second IndyCar Series Championship.
The pandemic season of 2020 didn’t start until June 6 and Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing started off the COVID-delayed season with three straight victories. Newgarden made a late-season surge with two wins in the final three races, including the last race of the season in 2020 at St. Petersburg to finish second to Dixon.
Dixon and Newgarden each had four wins in 2020.
Newgarden’s win total dipped to two, but he finished second to Alex Palou in 2021. In 2022, Power won his second title with one win and nine podiums. Newgarden finished fifth but led the series with five victories.
In 2023, Newgarden faltered toward the end of the season with back-to-back 25th-place finishes in the Gallagher Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 12, 2023, and a 25th in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois on August 27 after starting on the pole.
A 21st-place finish in the final race of the season at Monterey, California doomed Newgarden to a fifth-place finish in the standings.
When he drove to an apparent victory on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida in 2024, Newgarden believed he was back, Team Penske was back, and Chevrolet had the edge over Honda.
Six weeks later, Newgarden was disqualified, and he spent the rest of the season trying to catch up.
“It’s a fluid situation,” Newgarden told NBCSports.com. “I think you could argue this year has been that way. It's kind of been a continuous pounding in a lot of respects."
“It wasn't like that the last four years. It's disappointing to see what slipped. Certainly 2020-21-22, those were tough years to seal the deal as I talked about with what we're going to try and do."
“In 2023 we were really in the mix until a really late fade and then this year was its own story, it's been its own thing."
“But I continually get excited about the potential. I say that a lot, but it's the truth. What keeps you going, and for me, I know the potential of our team. I know what's possible, and we haven't realized our potential yet, so that keeps me excited.”
Newgarden has time to regain his dominance. With 31 career victories, the 33-year-old driver from Nashville can continue to race for wins and championships.
Except for the month of May at the Indianapolis 500, there is much about 2024 that Newgarden would like to forget.
Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500
