The Team Penske driver won’t admit that he found it easy to win the opening round of the 2024 IndyCar season, but he certainly made it appear that way
JOEY BARNES PHOTOGRAPHY
INDYCAR
Josef Newgarden was nearly untouchable as the IndyCar Series kicked off its season on the sunny streets of St Petersburg last weekend. The 33-year-old double champion surged to pole on Saturday, and that proved to be the primer. Newgarden established dominance in Sunday’s contest with his Team Penske Dallara-Chevrolet, leading 92 of 100 laps en route to claiming victory by 7.9s over the Arrow McLaren machine of Pato O’Ward.
It was Newgarden’s 30th career IndyCar victory, which broke a tie with Penske legend Rick Mears for 13th on the all-time wins list, and his third on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit.
Although the Tennessee native won’t confess to winning in IndyCar being easy, this latest drive, which was also his first non-oval win since June 2022 at Road America, was about as close as it gets. “I don’t want to say it felt easy, but it felt really, really comfortable today,” said Newgarden. “I had a lot of fun. I sort of told myself early in the race, ‘I’m going. I’m not here to wait around. We’re going to win this race.’
“I’m really thankful to the team for the effort they’ve put in to get to this point. It’s been a big process for us to try to come back and be better in areas that we were weak last year, and Chevrolet has done a tremendous job for us. They’re a huge part of the equation. On the team side, we’ve also lifted our game and cleaned up a lot of areas where we were maybe not at the level we needed to be. It all just came together today. Obviously, we had strength because, looking at my team-mates, we’re sitting first, third and fourth. I think that’s really encouraging for the rest of the season.”
Newgarden had opted to start on the harder primary (black sidewall) Firestone tyres versus the softer alternate (green sidewall) compound sported by the Meyer Shank Racing car of Felix Rosenqvist, who was pipped to pole by just 0.0058s, making it the closest front row in an IndyCar event on a street circuit since June 2012 at Belle Isle, when Scott Dixon edged Will Power by 0.0044s. The polesitter managed to hold the lead at the start as the field scattered behind for the charge into Turn 1.
O’Ward started
