Josh Peter 2 games, 1 day, 12 miles apart
We’re there as Rams, Chargers share L.A.
The talent was never the question. For Josef Newgarden, an IndyCar championship was inevitable. Never an “if,” but a “when.”
No one knows that better than Ed Carpenter, the team owner and driver who trained with Newgarden, helped educate and mature him, helped turn him into a superstar and who dreamed of watching the young man fulfill his promise while wearing the curved letters of ECR across his chest.
Instead, he bittersweetly watched Newgarden win the first Verizon IndyCar Series championship of his career Sunday at Sonoma wearing, for the first time season of his career, the black of Team Penske.
And even Carpenter, more aware of Newgarden’s perhaps generational capabilities than anyone else, couldn’t help but be blown away by what he had just witnessed.
“Beyond impressive,” Carpenter said after watching Newgarden finish second in Sunday’s season finale and claim his first IndyCar championship. “He does a really good job of fixing weaknesses and making them strengths. He figured out where he wasn’t doing well in their structure, culture, ideology and recognized what that was and adapted quick. He knew that’s what he needed to do to compete with his elite teammates, and he did a better job than those guys.”
It didn’t take Newgarden a season, or even half a season, to figure it out. It took him one race before he was delivering signature performances such as Sunday’s flawless run to the title.
The 26-year-old registered a respectable top-10 finish in his Penske debut and then took off. He earned his first Penske podium at Race 2 in Long Beach, his first Penske victory in Race 3 at Barber and on Sunday evening at the finale in Sonoma he delivered his first Penske championship.
The points leader heading into the race, Newgarden drove flawlessly from the pole. The only thing that kept him from sealing his championship with a victory was the bold strategy and brilliant run deployed by 2016 IndyCar champion and Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud, who posted his second victory of the season.
Newgarden settled for second while delivering Penske the 15th season championship of his career. He became the first American to win an IndyCar championship since Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2012 and the first driver younger than 30 to a win a title since Scott Dixon won his second in 2008.
Sunday’s podium was Newgarden’s ninth of the season and fifth in his last six races.
While Newgarden earned a win early in the season, his assault on the championship truly began after a crash at Texas. Frustrated with himself after taking an unnecessary risk early in that race, Newgarden channeled that disappointment into delivering the best six-race stretch of his young career.
He finished it with a vengeance, earning the pole Saturday and clinching the title Sunday.
Ayello writes for The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network.