Newgarden hangs on, wins IndyCar championship title
Herta claims season finale race
MONTERREY, California, Sept 23, (AP): Josef Newgarden wrapped up his second IndyCar championship and burst into tears – an odd reaction for a steely-nerved race car driver who rarely shows emotion.
The outburst of emotion took him by surprise and shocked his fiancée, who had never before seen tears from Newgarden.
It was nearly two hours after his championship drive around Laguna Seca Raceway and Newgarden was still a bit emotional. Talking about the moment he collapsed into his crew members arms, choking back tears, he again nearly broke down.
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He won his second championship in three years with a smooth drive in the IndyCar season finale, where he played it safe and watched rookie Colton Herta dominate to the win.
Newgarden needed only to finish fourth or better to give Roger Penske his 16th IndyCar title. His drive clearly indicated he wouldn’t get aggressive and risk throwing it away, settling in for an eighth-place finish to beat teammate Simon Pagenaud by 25 points in the championship race.
It wasn’t the way he wanted to race, though.
The championship gave Team Penske a season sweep of the crown jewels of IndyCar; Pagenaud won the Indianapolis 500 in May for Penske’s record 18th victory.
Pagenaud was frantically chasing Scott Dixon and Penske teammate Will Power in the closing laps to get a shot at Herta – Pagenaud’s only real chance at winning the title – but settled for fourth in what will still go down as a careerdefining season. His sweep of all the events at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May earned him a contract extension that Penske confirmed before the race has been completed.
Newgarden went into the race, which was worth double points, trying to hold off Rossi, Pagenaud and Dixon for the title. But he controlled his own destiny
Josef Newgarden raises the trophy in the air after winning the championship after an IndyCar auto race at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterrey, California on Sept 22. (AP)
and knew he’d need an awful race and one of his challengers would likely need to win to prevent him from wrapping up the title.
Now that’s he’s got a second championship, the Tennessee native said he will go to work on the most important goal for all Penske drivers. Power and Pagenaud are both Indy 500 winners; Newgarden is winless in that event.
Nobody had anything Sunday for Herta, who led 83 of 90 laps.
The 19-year-old rookie upstaged the championship race the entire weekend by continuously leading the speed charts. Then he won the pole Saturday an hour after Andretti Autosport said it was pulling Herta inside its organization next season in a fifth full-time car.
Herta added he will be chasing the IndyCar championship next season when he moves tiny single-car Harding Steinbrenner Racing into the Andretti camp.
Herta joins his father, Bryan, as winners at the challenging 2.258-mile course. Bryan Herta was a two-time winner at Laguna Seca, and his son earlier this season became the youngest winner in IndyCar history with a victory in Texas just days before his 19th birthday.
He bookended his breakthrough season with the victory, but couldn’t snake the rookie of the year title away from Felix Rosenqvist.