Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who won the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500, says he felt people looked at him as a “failure” until he had captured victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Newgarden sprinted past defending Indy 500 race-winner Marcus Ericsson with less than half a lap to go after the third red flag of the day left a single-lap shootout to the checkered flag. Despite the Chip Ganassi Racing driver apparently making a break at the drop of the final green, Newgarden stayed in his draft through Turn 1 and carried more momentum through the short chute onto the back straight. Ericsson swung hard left to prevent his pursuer from creeping up the inside, but he was defenseless on the long run down to Turn 3, and Newgarden stayed high and passed him long before turn-in.
Newgarden then stayed firm through Turns 3 and 4 before crossing the yard of bricks a mere 0.0974s ahead of Ericsson.
“I’m just so thankful to be here, you have no idea,” gushed Newgarden after scoring Penske’s 19th Indy 500 victory, and his own 27th IndyCar triumph. “I started out as a fan in the crowd and this place, it’s amazing regardless of where you’re sitting. It doesn’t matter if you’re a jockey in the car, or you’re working on it, or you’re part of the crowd – you’re part of this event and the energy. I love this city; I drove racing cars here when I was a kid.
“I’m just so thankful to Roger (Penske) and Tim (Cindric, his team president and strategist) and everyone at Team Penske. I just felt like everyone kept asking me why I hadn’t won this race. They look at you like you’re a failure…and I wanted to win it so bad. I knew we could, I knew we were capable and I’m so thankful to Shell, Team Chevy, everybody. I’m so glad to be here.”
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Asked what was going through his mind as he crossed the yard of bricks for the final time, Newgarden said: “Oh, just pure emotion. I was just trying to stay locked in. I was emotional the whole last 10 laps because I knew we were in a position to fight for this win at the end.
“And I knew it wasn’t going to be easy; it was going to come to some last laps shootout like it always is these days, which is exciting but stressful for us.
“I’m just thinking about all the work. I can’t talk highly enough about the team. They worked so hard all month. It takes so long to get to this point. We’re here for weeks, grinding on this thing for just this one moment. That’s what makes it so demoralizing when it doesn’t work out.
“I can tell you, we’re going to enjoy it tonight; it’s going to be amazing to win this.”
After completing his slowdown lap, Newgarden stopped his car on the yard of bricks, got out of his car, ran over to the wall, and slipped under the fence to join the wildly cheering fans.
A man of the people!
Josef Newgarden goes INTO THE CROWD to celebrate his Indy 500 victory! #INDY500 pic.twitter.com/1mBUzoMSfH
— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) May 28, 2023
“I’ve always wanted to go into the crowd here at Indianapolis,” said the two-time IndyCar champion. “I’ve seen people go up on the fence; I wanted to go through the fence.
“I wanted to celebrate with the people. I just thought it would be so cool to feel that energy, because I know what that energy is like on race day. This was a dream of mine – that if this was ever gonna happen, I wanted to do that.”
Regarding the last lap fight with Ericsson, Newgarden commented: “P2 with one lap to go is where you wanted to be, and it actually worked out great that I got a run on the back straight. I knew if I could just get him and clear him into (Turn) 3, then maybe we could hold on until the line.
“But he was so quick on the straights, it wasn’t guaranteed. I was just trying to do everything I could to keep him back, and it was a fight – just a big fight.
“It’s not easy to win this race; it’s the most difficult race in the world to win.”