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LEBANON, Tenn. — Josef Newgarden, a two-time IndyCar Series champion and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, wrote a children’s book about his first victory titled “Josef’s Big Dream.”
Midway through this miserable year, he proposed a sequel: “Josef’s Bad Season.”
Gallows humor, sure, but he’s not really laughing. If Newgarden doesn’t win Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix — the season finale at Nashville Superspeedway — his home race, it will mark his first winless season since 2014.
“I’m like ready for someone to step around a corner with a bat and smack me in the face every two seconds,” Newgarden said after qualifying sixth Saturday at Nashville. “I’m just moving a little jerky these days.”
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, and there were no indications when he opened the year with a third-place finish on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. Fast-forward 16 races, and Newgarden is 16th in the standings, lowest of the Team Penske trio of drivers in what’s been an equally miserable year for the entire organization.
Newgarden has exactly one podium finish since the season-opening race, only three total top-five finishes, and one upside down flip in what may go down as the worst of his 14 years in IndyCar.
Newgarden has finished 22nd or worse in seven of 16 races, and he’s on track for his lowest finish in the championship standings since his 2012 rookie season, when he missed a race and finished 23rd.
“I can’t imagine it stays like this forever. Maybe it does. I don’t know,” the 34-year-old driver said. “Hey, you know what? If it does, it’s been a good ride. It’s been a pretty good ride.”
He can point to the Indianapolis 500 as where the season fell apart: IndyCar in pre-qualifying inspection found that Newgarden and teammate Will Power’s cars had been illegally altered, and team owner Roger Penske responded by firing the top three executives at Team Penske.
The purge included team president Tim Cindric, who was Newgarden’s strategist. Newgarden, who was trying to win the Indy 500 for a third consecutive year, had to start in the back, and a mechanical failure led to a 22nd-place finish.
“If we don’t have the 500, I don’t know what this year looks like — it’s like an alternate universe,” Newgarden said. “The cascade of that, to adapt, the flow of events that happened after that, you just can’t predict.”
IndyCar’s free agency period should officially begin after Sunday’s race — when Penske tells Will Power if he will be back for an 18th season with the organization.
Power, the only Penske driver with a win this season headed into the finale, is in a contract year and has had no discussions with the organization. He also was contractually prohibited from talking to other teams until Monday.
He said after qualifying that Penske had indicated they’d speak after the race. Power has been dogged by rumors all season that David Malukas will replace him in the No. 12, and Malukas, who currently drives for A.J. Foyt Racing, did not disclose what he’s doing next year.
Power, meanwhile, spoke in the past tense Saturday in reflecting on his time with Penske.
“Either way, whatever happens is fine,” he said. “Whatever happens, I’ve had a long career, I’ve had a good career, so whatever it is, it is good with me.”
Power believes he does have options to remain in IndyCar, even if he’s not renewed at Penske.
“It depends on what you want to do,” Power said. “You want to be somewhere where you can win.”
Colton Herta and Dan Towriss, the team owner of Andretti Global, once again declined to discuss if Herta will stay in IndyCar or move to Formula 2 next season in an effort to earn the points he needs for the super license required to compete in F1.
Herta said “I don’t know,” when asked if this his final race in IndyCar, and Towriss said “really not confirming anything.”
McLaren’s Pato O’Ward won the pole position for Sunday’s race to continue the momentum he has used to clinch second in the standings behind Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, who earlier this month and with two races to spare clinched his second straight championship and fourth overall (in a span of five years).
O’Ward will now try to win from the pole for the first time in his IndyCar career.
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