{"id":91093,"date":"2023-05-29T15:47:17","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T22:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=91093"},"modified":"2023-05-29T17:48:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T00:48:28","slug":"josef-newgarden-wins-107th-indianapolis-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/josef-newgarden-wins-107th-indianapolis-500\/","title":{"rendered":"Josef Newgarden Wins 107th Indianapolis 500"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The No. 2 Team Penske squad celebrates with winner Josef Newgarden in Victory Lane at Indianapolis Motor Speedway – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Roger Penske purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) at the start of 2020, he\u2019d already accumulated 18 victories in the Indianapolis 500. The most recent win came in 2019 with Simon Pagenaud, who ran the tables on the Month of May by winning the Grand Prix on the road course, taking pole position for the Indy 500 and winning the race.<\/p>\n

Mr. Penske likely didn\u2019t think it would take four years to earn a 19th victory, but the Greatest Spectacle in Racing is always filled with twists and turns. It\u2019s been said the track decides who will kiss the vaunted Yard of Bricks after taking the checkered flags. If Sunday\u2019s results are any indication, both the track and one driver hellbent on winning this race – after 12 years trying – were winners in Sunday\u2019s 107th edition of this race.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Josef Newgarden gave Roger Penske his 19th Indy 500 win – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Josef Newgarden, from Nashville, TN became the first American since Alexander Rossi won the 100th race to earn the checkered flags, the milk, wreath and all of the money and recognition that goes along with victory. He came from 17th on the grid to be in contention. The 200-lap enduro began with 91 clean laps of green flag racing around IMS’ 2.5-mile oval. Newgarden\u2019s No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet-powered Dallara led only five laps, but he did lead the most important one, doing so by blocking defending 2022 winner Marcus Ericsson\u2019s No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda on the single-lap run to the Yard of Bricks.<\/p>\n

Newgarden did what he had to do to gain victory, and it was tough going in the final 50 laps, with contact causing cautions and an incredible three red flags NTT INDYCAR SERIES officials deemed necessary to ensure the nearly 400,000 fans had a green flag result. On their feet and likely holding their breaths, fans witnessed a monumental battle between Newgarden and Ericsson that saw the 32-year-old victorious at the close. He then went to celebrate with fans, nearly climbing the fence after ducking under it. He finally entering Victory Lane with the help of his Team Penske crew.<\/p>\n

Ericsson settled for second by a margin of 0.0974 seconds, the fourth-closest in history – and not terribly happily – while A.J. Foyt Racing\u2019s Santino Ferrucci brought his Chevy-powered No. 14 car home third, Foyt\u2019s best result in 20 years. \u201cThat boy can drive,\u201d said the first four-time winner of this race. Polesitter Alex Palou, in the No. 10 Ganassi Honda recovered to finish fourth after being rammed while leaving his pit box by Ed Carpenter Racing\u2019s Rinus VeeKay during stops at the halfway mark.<\/p>\n

Alexander Rossi brought his Arrow McLaren Chevy home fifth, the highest finish for that four-car squad, six-time INDYCAR champion and 2008 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon scored sixth for Ganassi, followed by single-race teammate Takuma Sato, a two-time winner of this race who was quick and tidy all month. Ed Carpenter Racing\u2019s (ECR) Conor Daly brought the team\u2019s No. 20 Chevy from 16th to eighth, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched this driver charge through fields throughout his 10-year career in Indy cars.<\/p>\n

Colton Herta had the highest finish for Andretti Autosport\u2019s four-car Honda squad, in ninth from 21st on the grid. VeeKay finished tenth after his drive-through penalty for avoidable contact; he qualified second in the previous Sunday\u2019s Firestone Fast Six time trials. Twenty-one of the 33 starters were still on the track after the mostly sun-drenched 200 laps, but the final runner, Team Penske\u2019s Will Power, still finished behind two drivers, Carpenter and rookie Benjamin Pedersen, who were out due to the final caution and red flag after crashing on the pit straight.<\/p>\n

Seventeen of the finishers were on the lead, 200th lap, with 2014 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay (Dreyer & Reinbold No. 23 Chevy), Juncos Hollinger\u2019s Callum Ilott (No. 77 Chevy), Devlin DeFrancesco\u2019s No. 29 Honda from Andretti Autosport and Team Penske\u2019s Scott McLaughlin in the No. 3 Chevy 11th through 14th. Marco Andretti\u2019s No. 98 Honda, 17th, was the final car to complete the distance.<\/p>\n

Two drivers who completed the full race were four-time winner Helio Castroneves, who took 15th in Meyer Shank Racing\u2019s No. 06 Honda and Tony Kanaan, 16th in the No. 66 Arrow McLaren Chevy. This duo, whose racing careers have paralleled one another since 1987, saluted each other on the cool-down lap as Kanaan completed his long INDYCAR career at this race. The popular Brazilian will likely return to coach NASCAR\u2019s 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson (who was on-site as the Cup Series\u2019 Coca-Cola 600 was rained out until Monday) next year.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Newgarden action – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before the numerous cautions in the second half of the race, there was plenty of commotion on Indy\u2019s long pit road. Errors in the pits caused many who could have had better results to settle for less. Start with Katherine Legge, who out-qualified her three regular-season teammates at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLLR). Legge, who competes with Acura in IMSA\u2019s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, didn\u2019t have much time to practice pit stops and it showed. \u201cI ended up just overcooking the launch and barely touched the wall, but it did race-ending damage,\u201d she explained of her 33rd place result.<\/p>\n

The incident between pole man Palou, who had the first pit box at the road\u2019s exit, and VeeKay was the result of the latter\u2019s smoking launch from the pit behind the Spaniard\u2019s that damaged both cars. The pit road issues were nothing compared to what happened to the 33rd starter, Graham Rahal in Dreyer & Reinbold\u2019s No. 24 Chevy. Rahal was appointed to this car after Stefan Wilson\u2019s accident during the post-qualifying Monday mid-day practice. The lanky Briton was on-site to cheer him on, but with a battery issue on the grid, Rahal had to call immediately on the pits and was two laps down when he entered competition. He would complete 195 laps, coming back from that difficulty to finish 22nd.<\/p>\n

The red flags were the story of the day with cautions begetting cautions and INDYCAR wanting to give fans the show they deserved, rather than having the last laps run under caution. The first red was caused when Arrow McLaren\u2019s Felix Rosenqvist got loose, hit the wall out of the first turn and impacted Andretti Autosport\u2019s Kyle Kirkwood, sending one of the latter car\u2019s wheel\/tire combos over IMS\u2019s tall fencing and, thankfully, into the second turn\u2019s parking lot, where it impacted a worker\u2019s car. Kirkwood\u2019s car overturned in this incident. No human was injured and both drivers were easily released from infield care, but the clean-up was long as INDYCAR wanted to ensure no one was hurt.<\/p>\n

\"\"
As Ericsson leads in the closing laps, both Newgarden and O’Ward hound him on the pit straight – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second red came when Mexican star Pato O\u2019Ward was a wee bit over-anxious to win, went low in the third turn, caught some air, with both Meyer Shank\u2019s Pagenaud and Juncos Hollinger\u2019s rookie Agustin Canapino involved. The second red came out on the 194th lap.<\/p>\n

With Ericsson in the lead at this point, RLLR\u2019s Christian Lundgaard, Ed Carpenter, rookie Benjamin Pedersen had contact, involving both Andretti and Rahal, causing the series to shut down the race once more. This left the field to complete a single lap of competition as the green and white flags flew simultaneously.<\/p>\n

As they came to the checkered flags, Newgarden was using the \u201cdragon move\u201d that intends to stop a following car from being able to pass. He had gotten by Ericsson at the second turn and was not about to let him get an opportunity out of the fourth turn to beat him to the checkers. It worked. Just as it did for Ericsson last year when he beat O\u2019Ward to the checkers under green.<\/p>\n

Newgarden not only gave Roger Penske his 19th win in this race, but the 12th for Chevrolet in their 109th series victory. His mother, Tina, acknowledged that her son \u201cwanted this so bad.\u201d And the victor did \u201ccry out the emotions. I had it. I had a ton of emotion there for a little bit. I\u2019m just thankful to the team that we finally got this done. I was trying to put it off, you know, like it\u2019s not going to define a career winning a race here, but everyone seems to want to make it a defining moment and, for me, I\u2019m elated to finally get it to work out,\u201d the two-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion reflected.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Ashley Newgarden takes a selfie with winner and husband Josef Newgarden at the Yard of Bricks – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to win here and go in the crowd for so long. I\u2019ve been waiting to do that – I\u2019ve always wanted to go in the crowd here in Indy. There\u2019s nothing like it. I\u2019m just so thankful to be here to have a shot to run this race. I will never forget this my entire life,\u201d the winner said.<\/p>\n

On Monday night his earnings will be revealed and that of the remaining 32 racers at a banquet and prize-giving ceremony at the JW Marriott. Newgarden will celebrate with the full Team Penske crew and with wife Ashley, parents Tina and Joey and his young son, Kota Nicolai Newgarden, just over one year old.<\/p>\n

And then, it\u2019s time to put the 107th Indianapolis 500 in the rearview mirror. The seventh race of the season is just next Sunday on the downtown streets of Detroit, a return to downtown for the series that had been racing at Belle Isle for the past few decades.<\/p>\n

107th Indianapolis 500 results:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. (17) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n2. (10) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 200, Running
\n3. (4) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n4. (1) Alex Palou, Honda, 200, Running
\n5. (7) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n6. (6) Scott Dixon, Honda, 200, Running
\n7. (8) Takuma Sato, Honda, 200, Running
\n8. (16) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n9. (21) Colton Herta, Honda, 200, Running
\n10. (2) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n11. (18) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n12. (27) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n13. (25) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 200, Running
\n14. (14) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n15. (20) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 200, Running
\n16. (9) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 200, Running
\n17. (24) Marco Andretti, Honda, 200, Running
\n18. (32) Jack Harvey, Honda, 199, Running
\n19. (30) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 198, Running
\n20. (13) Ed Carpenter, Chevrolet, 197, Contact
\n21. (11) Benjamin Pedersen (R), Chevrolet, 196, Contact
\n22. (33) Graham Rahal, Chevrolet, 195, Running
\n23. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 195, Running
\n24. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 192, Contact
\n25. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Honda, 192, Contact
\n26. (26) Agustin Canapino (R), Chevrolet, 192, Contact
\n27. (3) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 183, Contact
\n28. (15) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 183, Contact
\n29. (23) David Malukas, Honda, 160, Contact
\n30. (19) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 149, Contact
\n31. (31) Sting Ray Robb (R) Honda, 90, Contact
\n32. (28) RC Enerson (R), Chevrolet, 75, Mechanical
\n33. (29) Katherine Legge, Honda, 41, Contact<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Roger Penske purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) at the start of 2020, he\u2019d already accumulated 18 victories in the Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":91096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[772,3470,5029,22],"tags":[9707,39,955,3602,9155,725],"class_list":["post-91093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-circle-track-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-event-coverage","tag-107th-indianapolis-500","tag-chevrolet","tag-indianapolis-motor-speedway","tag-josef-newgarden","tag-ntt-indycar-series","tag-team-penske"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Josef-and-RP-celebrate-min-e1685400394362.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-nHf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91093"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91105,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91093\/revisions\/91105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}