INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden begins his 15th IndyCar season in a new role — as the most veteran IndyCar driver at Team Penske.
It comes at the same time Newgarden is trying to rebound from one of his worst seasons in more than a decade. He’s also trying to help the series’ most successful team rebuild its image following two cheating scandals over the past two years, and he’s still trying to get acclimated to seeing longtime teammate Will Power and Ron Ruzewski, Penske’s ex-managing director, working together at a rival team.
Yes, for the 35-year-old, two-time series champ it’s going to take some time for it to make sense.
“That was weird,” Newgarden said Tuesday, explaining his reaction to seeing Power and Ruzewski in Phoenix for a Firestone test earlier this month in their new jobs at Andretti Global.
“It was more weird seeing Ron. I was like ‘What the heck?’ Like I just wanted to debrief with Ron. I was like ’Yeah, what do you think of this? We like this tire, right?′ It was so silly. I’m like ’What are you even doing over there, both him and Will.”
Newgarden, like the other full-time drivers, was in Indianapolis for the first of IndyCar’s two media content days at Indianapolis Motor Speedway despite losing power at his home during the weekend’s winter storm. Power, his longtime former teammate, is scheduled to talk during one of Wednesday’s two driver sessions.
Newgarden has been around long enough to understand that change is the norm when living in racing’s fast lane.
For most of the past eight seasons, though, the Tennessean has been able to maintain his focus on winning races and capturing championships for one of the series most stable teams.
Things started changing last season as Power was strung along in the final year of a contract with a team he had driven for since 2009. His uncertainty and desire to stay with Penske became an overarching theme of the season.
Then, in qualifying for the Indianapolis 500, Power and Newgarden landed in the second cheating scandal involving Roger Penske’s iconic team in just over a year. Moments before both drivers readied to make their runs for the pole, inspectors found both cars had a modified spec part. The modification was to a safety part, Team Penske for appearances-sake filled a seam near the part — which was illegal, even though IndyCar said it found no evidence it provided a competitive advantage.
As a result, Penske fired Ruzewski, team president Tim Cindric and IndyCar general manager Kyle Moyer. Penske changed the leadership structure in July by promoting Jonathan Diuguid to president of Penske Racing and made Travis Law the team’s competition director. Then in September, team officials announced Power also would not return this season. They signed David Malukas as Power’s replacement.
The decision gave Newgarden a new title — longest tenured driver on a three-car team fighting hard to get back in the championship mix.
“We are the evil empire, about to strike,” Newgarden joked. “I want to tell you, yeah it feels all different. It feels similar in a lot of ways. When I go in the shop, obviously, we’re going to have some changes, but it feels like business as usual in a lot of respects, so I’m excited.”
The 45-year-old Power is excited for another reason.
“There’s nothing more I want to do this year than beat Penske every single weekend,” Power said last week in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Newgarden, on the other hand, holds no ill will toward the teammate who welcomed him to Team Penske back in 2017. But, as Power understands well, Newgarden doesn’t intend to cede anything — even to an old friend.
“I just have a pothole detector,” Newgarden said. “It’s like instead of not seeing where they are, I’m going to find them this year, so that’s my strategy. It’s not a good strategy, but if I can just avoid them without falling into the crevices, I think we’re going to be better off. I’m like 90% positive if we fall in less potholes. We’re going to be better.”
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