Josef Newgarden makes Indy 500 tradition with daring final lap pass for second straight victory

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – A year ago, he jumped, he climbed and he screamed.

It was an eruption of emotion, like the one that comes after winning your first Indianapolis 500 in 12 tries. Josef Newgarden parked his No. 2 Penske Chevrolet on the brick lot at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, climbed out of his cockpit, climbed over the net and immediately turned the bleachers lining the front into a mosh pit.

The scene shows how much this race means to those who win it.

“You don’t know if you’ll ever win here,” he admitted. “Of course, we can dream about it. How could you not?

He had. For years. For decades, in fact. Then Newgarden rode five top 10s in his first 11 starts – and that so-close-yet-so-far feeling that comes with it – wondering and worrying, like so many others, if he would ever get there. kiss the bricks.

“Whether you are near or far,” he said, “you leave with a broken heart. »

That’s why when he finally did, when he could finally take a sip of milk, he let it all out.

The climb. The Scream. The delirium.

On Sunday, Newgarden jumped, climbed and screamed again, as he had 12 months before, because what happened next was just as sweet. It took a courageous pass on the penultimate turn of the final lap of the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500, with Newgarden running wide and passing Pato O’Ward, who had rushed ahead at the start of lap 200 . and desperately wanted to end the heartache he suffered too often here.

ONLY IN #INDYCAR.
ONLY AT #INDY500.

IT IS — AND ALWAYS WILL BE — THE GREATEST SHOW IN RACING! pic.twitter.com/NA0PxYhm5t

– NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) May 26, 2024

Newgarden knows this grief intimately.

“I want to win this race so bad,” a devastated O’Ward said later.

But this is Indy, where the margin between agony and ecstasy is three-tenths of a second. Newgarden became the first driver to win back-to-back 500s in 22 years with a flawless finish, hammering the final quarter of the race with everything he had and then holding off O’Ward by a hair down the stretch.

“It was flat out,” Newgarden said of the final stretch. “No one lifted (the gas) or gave up anything. I felt like I was destroying half the time.

“We were on the offensive for the last 60 laps,” added Jonathan Diuguid, Newgarden’s backup race strategist.

O’Ward admitted the same thing. He rode for the whole thing, with no intention of finishing second.

The duel over the final 10 laps proved to be tremendous theater, a well-deserved showcase for the 300,000 fans who weathered a four-hour weather delay and watched the race finish into evening dusk. O’Ward passed Newgarden with five to go; Newgarden responded two rounds later as the two separated from contenders Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi. Then O’Ward rushed ahead while the white flag flew. It looked as fast as any car on the track.

Was this his moment?

Newgarden was waiting. He had four rounds left.

He waited. He had two rounds left.

Dixon, himself a former champion, was third, hoping the two would collide.

When would Newgarden act?

And would it work?

Then, just as the two men headed into the third turn, he pounced. It was a daring acceleration before the short chute, the kind of gamble that either wins the Borg-Warner Trophy or leads to an embarrassing crash on the final lap. It could have cost him everything.

“We were going to put everything on the line,” Newgarden said. “You have to do it if you want to win Indy.”

He was right.

This approach bore fruit. He walked around O’Ward, then rushed into the story.

Newgarden got out of his car a moment later, sprinting toward the stands, the same scene from last May playing out on the home stretch at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“We weren’t going to regret anything when we came home,” he beamed a few hours later.

The triumph capped a tumultuous month for Newgarden and Team Penske: his season-opening victory in St. Petersburg was overturned after he was found to have used the illegal push-to-pass maneuver during the race . The additional sanction, imposed by Newgarden boss Roger Penske – who is also the speedway owner and chairman of the NTT IndyCar Series – was severe: four crew members were suspended, including the chief race strategist of Newgarden, Tim Cindric.

Newgarden denied knowingly violating the rules, but it was nonetheless a difficult start to May for the defending champion. There were even some boos at IMS this week aimed at its management.

Newgarden ignored him, seeming undeterred.

He drove like that too.

The No. 2 team had a text chain throughout the week called “Indy 500 Domination.”

On Sunday, with two fewer engineers and Diuguid replacing Cindric, Newgarden became the first driver since Helio Castroneves in 2002 to successfully defend his title.

Newgarden, quite quickly, became part of Indy history.

Diuguid, who before Sunday had never competed in an Indianapolis 500 victory, told a colleague: “I don’t think we made a single mistake today.”

It certainly didn’t seem like it. A complicated early race, peppered with errors and caution flags, settled into the back half. Eventually, Newgarden and O’Ward pulled away from the field, trading the lead four times over the final 10 laps.

“I have to take my hat off to Pato,” Newgarden said. “He could have easily won that race too, but it just got away from us.”

The last-lap pass gave Penske his record 20th Indianapolis 500 win as an owner, and Newgarden a $440,000 bonus from BorgWarner for his back-to-back comeback.

Make no mistake, he deserved it all for this one.

“It was a blur,” Newgarden said of the breathtaking finale. “It was so intense the last 30 laps.”

Like a year ago, when he repelled Marcus Ericsson’s attempt to win back-to-back titles.

Same winner. Same scene. Same celebration.

But 2025 will be different, because next year the stakes will be even higher.

Twelve months from now, Newgarden will have the chance to achieve something no driver has done in the 113-year history of the world’s most revered motor race.

That’s winning three times in a row.

(Photo of Josef Newgarden celebrating Sunday’s win: Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)