Nashville’s Josef Newgarden, the defending Indianapolis 500 champion, had his first win of the season wiped away when it was learned the Team Penske, the most dominant team in the sport, used an unfair advantage. He’ll start in the front row of Sunday’s Indy 500 alongside two teammates.
-- Photo By Darron Cummings | ApJosef Newgarden’s affable smile is back. Not that it really left, but the Nashville driver has been riding an unexpected emotional roller-coaster since capturing his first Indianapolis 500 championship last year.
After crossing the finish line, Newgarden climbed out of his car into the grandstands to celebrate with fans. That feel-good moment cemented his legend as one of the most popular drivers in motor sports.
Things sure have changed since then, and Newgarden’s good-guy image is a bit tarnished after officials took away his 2024 season-opening win at the St. Pete Grand Prix for a violation of the push-to-pass rule.
But now he’s back at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Sunday’s 108th running of “the greatest spectacle in racing” and hoping a return to Victory Lane will silence critics and complete a comeback from one of the darkest moments of his career.
Newgarden qualified third and will start on the outside of the front row with alongside two fellow Team Penske drivers, pole sitter Scott McLaughlin and Will Power. If Newgarden wins, he will become the first driver to repeat as champion since Helio Castroneves in 2001-02.
“This is an amazing job by Team Penske to have all three cars on the front row, it’s a testament to the team. That’s what Indianapolis rewards, is the individual effort for every individual that we have in this group,” Newgarden told NBC Sports following his qualifying run.
“I’ve said this all month, it takes an entire year to get to this point. We don’t find this over a week or two. I’m thrilled for the team (but) I’m bummed. I wish the (No.) 2 car could have been (on the pole) – but the car is up there. And at the end of the day, all of us are. So it’s great for the team.
“I’m sure the boss is happy and, us as a group, we’re happy that we’re able to work together up front to try and win this race. So this is great for Team Penske.”
The front-row lockout, the team’s first in 36 years, had owner Roger Penske glowing.
“What a team effort, this whole month,” Penske told NBC. “To see us come back from some adversity here, it shows how good our team is, what a deep bench we have … We dug deep, we delivered and certainly you can see the power in those Chevy engines. Just amazing.”
Pushing past controversy
Amazing also is a good word to put into perspective how IndyCar’s push-to-pass ruling has affected Newgarden, from the actual violation in early March at St. Pete to IndyCar’s jaw-dropping announcement a month later and through the races leading up to Sunday’s Indy 500.
IndyCar normally disables the push-to-pass system for street and road courses, including St. Petersburg. The system gives cars a boost of about 50 horsepower on starts and restarts.
IndyCar ruled the push-to-pass system had been manipulated in Penske cars driven by Newgarden, McClaughlin and Power. McLaughlin’s third-place finish also was vacated, while Power was hit with a 10-point penalty in the standings. Penske suspended several team officials for the month of May, including the Indy 500.
Newgarden made his first comments about the incident during a lengthy news conference at the Alabama Indy Grand Prix in late April and was fighting back tears, The Associated Press reported. He accepted responsibility while stressing it wasn’t intentional and that he had not lied about what occurred.
“I want to deeply apologize to our fans, our partners, my teammates, the competitors that I race against,” Newgarden told reporters. “Anybody that’s in our community. I’ve worked my entire career to hold myself to a very high standard and clearly I’ve fallen very short of that in this respect. It’s a difficult thing to wrestle with. It’s a very embarrassing thing to go through.
“It’s crushing. I’m going to look back on it, too, and say I don’t want that win on my books, either,” he added. “I’m glad they’re taking it away. If it was tainted, I don’t want to be near it. Unfortunately, it is. I can’t reverse that in time. It’s good what’s happened.”
Newgarden’s explanation that he didn’t know he was breaking a rule was questioned by several other drivers, including Andretti Global driver Colton Herta, who now lives in Nashville.
“That’s wrong. If he thought that, why didn’t he push it at the start?” said Herta, who will start 13th in the Indy 500. “He didn’t push it at the start. He pushed it on the restarts. You would think when everybody is stacked up the most, you would push it. So that’s a lie.
“I think some of what Josef said wasn’t true. I don’t believe it, and so maybe what he said is true about it taking a little bit (to regain the trust of his rivals), but we’ll see.”
Focusing on the future
Fast forward to the May 11 Sonsio Grand Prix on the IMS road course. In speaking with NBCSports.com, Newgarden made clear his team is “absolutely focused forward. There’s been some adversity here in the first half of the year, but this team is resilient. We know our character. We know our values, and we’re not changing from who we are,” Newgarden added.
“There’s no one I respect more than Roger Penske and this team,” he continued. “To be able to come back here as winners to compete with this group, it means the world to me and it would be a huge victory for all of us if we could get there.”
While Newgarden appears to be focusing on the future and not looking in the rearview mirror, this has been a hot topic for fans and media.
In a May 16 post, autosport.com columnist Charles Bradley asked this telling question: “Is Newgarden the Indy 500 poster boy or its paddock pariah? He’s both right now, in this writer’s mind.”
He then compared Newgarden’s current status to Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon, two “superstar drivers who weren’t universally liked … Both had their fans, both had their haters; both were incredibly successful. Newgarden isn’t in IndyCar to win any friends, he’s in it to win races.”
And his defense of the Indianapolis 500 awaits.