IndyCar: This trend points to Josef Newgarden winning it all

Josef Newgarden is set to enter an IndyCar season going for his third championship for the second straight year. But one trend points to it happening this time.

A valiant comeback, which started with him trailing Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon by a whopping 117 points with just six races remaining on the schedule, came up just shy for Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden in the 2020 IndyCar season.

The two-time champion fell just 16 points shy of Dixon in the championship standings after beating the now six-time champion in each of the final six races on the schedule, including three by winning.

The 2021 season marks Newgarden’s fifth season with Team Penske, and no other Team Penske driver has won the championship since before his arrival. Since 2017, it’s been either Newgarden or Dixon, and on an every other year basis.

Newgarden won it in his first season with the team in 2017 before winning it again in 2019.

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But it’s not that particular every-other-year trend that points to him winning again in 2021, even though he should definitely be considered the favorite after his torrid pace throughout the latter half of last year’s 14-race campaign.

When the 30-year-old Hendersonville, Tennessee native joined Roger Penske’s organization, he did so as the replacement for 2000 CART champion and two-time Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya, who had driven the #2 Chevrolet since the 2014 season.

Newgarden took over the driving duties of the #2 car in 2017, and he won the championship.

The reigning champion has the right to use the number 1 if he pleases; the only driver who hasn’t done it since Ryan Hunter-Reay won the 2012 title is Dixon, and he has passed up it four times now. Newgarden took advantage of that opportunity in 2018. He ended up finishing in fifth place in the championship standings.

The following year, back in the #2 Chevrolet, he was crowned champion again. Then in 2020, behind the wheel of the #1 Chevrolet, he finished in second place in the championship standings.

Now he is back with the number he doesn’t necessarily want to have, but the number with which he is two for two in terms of winning titles.

“You know, we seem to win championships in the 2,” he answered in response to a statement about how he would naturally rather to be the reigning champion in the #1 car. “Hopefully it’s a good year for us, though.”

Will Newgarden make it three for three in the #2 Chevrolet in 2021, and if so, will he become just the second driver since 2012-2013 to pass up on using the number 1 in 2022?

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The 2021 season is scheduled to get underway on Sunday, April 18 at Barber Motorsports Park with the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama Presented by AmFirst, which is set to be broadcast live on NBC beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET.