IndyCar: Josef Newgarden's best tracks still to come in 2019

Enough about Josef Newgarden having success at tracks where he previously struggled; an ever scarier thought is the fact that some of the best tracks for the current leader of the IndyCar championship standings still remain on the 2019 schedule.

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden was already one of the best IndyCar drivers in the field heading into the 2019 season. That said, there was still doubt about his ability to perform at a high level on certain tracks. However, he has cast that doubt aside completely so far this year.

Through the first nine races of the 17-race season, the 28-year-old Henderson, Tennessee native leads all drivers with three victories, and he earned all three of these victories at tracks where he had never previously been victorious.

In fact, two of these tracks were among his four worst tracks (out of the 14 tracks on this year’s schedule at which he previously competed) both in terms of his average finishing positions there and his top finishes there.

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The fact that Newgarden has had so much success at tracks where he has previously been a mid-pack driver at best is scary in itself for the rest of the field. Coupled with the fact that he currently leads the championship standings by 25 points (367 to 342) over Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi in second place, it is even more scary.

What’s even scarier is the fact that Newgarden’s best tracks — in fact, several of them — still remain on this year’s schedule.

Entering the season, Newgarden had been victorious at six of the 14 tracks on this year’s schedule, and he had won a total of nine races there. He also won last year’s race at ISM Raceway, but that track was removed from the schedule ahead of this season.

Five of these six tracks are set to host one of the season’s remaining eight races. He won last year’s race at Road America, the races at Exhibition Place in the 2015 and 2017 seasons, the race at Iowa Speedway in the 2016 season, the race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in the 2017 season and the race at Gateway Motorsports Park (now World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway) in the 2017 season.

Of the other three tracks remaining on this year’s schedule, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is the only track at which Newgarden has not competed. The other two tracks are Pocono Raceway and Portland International Raceway.

Even without a victory at Pocono Raceway, this track could be argued as Newgarden’s overall best track. In six previous starts there, he has never finished outside of the top eight. He has recorded five top five finishes, including two second place finishes, and an average finishing position of 4.33. Only his average finishing position at Road America, which is 3.67 in three starts, is better.

Portland International Raceway is a bit of a conundrum in terms of figuring out just how good Newgarden is there. He finished in 10th place in his lone start there last season, and 10.00 is his sixth best average finishing position among those at the 14 tracks on this year’s schedule, yet at the same time, 10th is his second worst top finishing position among those at these 14 tracks.

Of the seven remaining tracks on this year’s schedule at which Newgarden has previously completed, only his average finishing position at Exhibition Place does not rank among his top seven average finishing positions at the 14 tracks on the schedule at which he had previously competed entering the season.

His average finishing position of 12.56 in nine starts at this track is his 10th best. That said, this track is also the lone remaining track on the schedule at which he has earned two victories at. So by no means has he struggled there just because his average finishing position isn’t a podium or a top five.

There are several other details worth noting about Newgarden’s success at these seven tracks. He made a combined 22 starts there from the 2015 season through the 2018 season, and he only failed to finish in the top 10 in two of these starts. Even including these two undesirable results, his average finishing position in these 22 starts was a beyond impressive 5.27. Not including them, it was 4.05.

Particularly notable are the facts that in three starts at Road America, he has finished outside of the top two just once (eighth place in 2016), and he has not finished outside of the top six at Iowa Speedway since the 2013 season when he finished in 15th. He has recorded four top four finishes, three top two finishes and a victory in his last five starts at the track.

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With the 2019 IndyCar championship battle between Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi already looking like it will become simply a two-driver battle with no other true contenders, can even Rossi stop Newgarden with the rest of the 2019 schedule looking how it does?

Fortunately for Rossi, he, too, has had a significant amount of success at most of the season’s remaining tracks, and in far fewer starts as well, so the fact that Newgarden has been as good as he has been at these tracks should only intensify this battle, which could ultimately turn into a high-level rivalry that has been a long time coming for IndyCar.

IndyCar: Josef Newgarden’s best tracks still to come in 2019

By Asher Fair | Jun 20, 2019

Enough about Josef Newgarden having success at tracks where he previously struggled; an ever scarier thought is the fact that some of the best tracks for the current leader of the IndyCar championship standings still remain on the 2019 schedule.