IndyCar: One question each title contender must answer
By Asher Fair
IndyCar contenders: Josef Newgarden – Is he the next all-time great?
It’s crazy to think that Josef Newgarden could be in the top 10 in the all-time IndyCar wins list by the end of next season, which is only set to be his age 32 season.
Newgarden has won multiple races each year since joining Team Penske in 2017, and his five wins this season are the most since Simon Pagenaud became the most recent non-Newgarden champion for Roger Penske’s organization back in 2016.
If Newgarden can already win a third championship in his age 31 season, there is no reason to believe he will stop there.
To put that into perspective, Scott Dixon won his third title in his age 33 season. And at the age of 31, Dixon owned 26 victories when the 2011 season ended. Newgarden sits at 25. If not for the fluke crash at Iowa Speedway, he’d be there already.
But there is something more to consider here that could fuel him to that third title: since joining Team Penske in 2017, he has never been beaten by a teammate in a championship battle, and he sits 20 points behind teammate Will Power.
In 2018, he did finish behind Power in the standings, but neither one was a truly contender heading into the season finale (mathematically alive because of double points, but that’s about it).
He won it in his first season with the team in 2017, won it again in 2019, finished behind Dixon in 2020, and finished behind Alex Palou in 2021.
Which leads me to my next point…
Dixon gets tons of praise for the fact that his “bad years” still produce fourth place points finishes. Newgarden’s bad years produce runner-up finishes. He doesn’t want 2022 to be another “bad year”.