As the defending NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion, Josef Newgarden enters the 2020 season with the traditional No. 1 on his Team Penske Chevrolet. Having the champion use the number is the continuation of a long-standing honor that began way back in the AAA days of Indy car racing.
Newgarden is a two-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion, having also won the title in 2017. He is prepared to begin his defense of the 2019 championship in Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, a street race in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“Similar to last year we have a similar approach every season of trying to prepare as best as possible,” Newgarden said as he looks forward to the start of another season. “We do a nice analysis together from the previous year. Really all of us, Simon Pagenaud, Will Power and myself at Team Penske, we sat down with the team in the off-season. I think as the drivers, we try to get together and push in a common direction.
“We all feel pretty similar about where our weaknesses were, strengths were. We try and improve on that, just make ourselves better in all areas for the next season.”
The goals at Team Penske remain the same: Win races, win championships and win the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge.
“We have the same goals,” Newgarden said. “We need to try to win the Indianapolis 500 as a team, same thing with the driver’s championship. It will go in that order.
“The prep is the same. There is a little bit more pressure to try to do it again, but the preparation doesn't change.”
Newgarden leads a group of star INDYCAR drivers who are in their 20s. The two-time champion from Hendersonville, Tenn., doesn’t turn 30 until Dec. 22.
He is at the stage of his career where he has a tremendous combination of youthful athleticism to go along with veteran experience.
Newgarden said that is important because with the aggressive group of young drivers in the series, including a fresh new crop of rookies for 2020, he has to be ready to meet the challenge.
Some of those rookies will meet the challenge and enjoy a career in the series. Others may not. It took Newgarden 55 races before he finally won his first race in the 2015 Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, so he knows the struggles young drivers face.
“I think there's a super-strong group,” Newgarden said. “There are a lot of teams coming in, a lot of drivers coming in nowadays that are very strong.
“I think the parity (of drivers in the series) is better than it's ever been. Really you can get plopped into any situation it seems like right now and have a good, fighting chance. There's such a depth and talent not just from the drivers but the teams. You have good engineers, good mechanics everywhere. There are really not any bad seats anymore. That's certainly to the benefit of the rookies coming in now to the series.”
There are also some young veterans who are fighting Newgarden for INDYCAR supremacy, led by 28-year-old Alexander Rossi and 19-year-old Colton Herta.
“Colton already is a young star,” Rossi said. “I think he'll continue to be one. There are a lot of guys you have to watch out for, try and be better than. That's a good thing. The young guys push the old guys, and that's what it's all about.”
Newgarden is in a unique position as he enters his ninth season in INDYCAR. He is young enough that he is just now entering his prime, but he has the championship experience of a veteran.
Some of this year’s rookie crop are already asking Newgarden for racing advice.
“I’m starting to notice that a little bit, particularly with Rinus VeeKay,” Newgarden said of the driver of the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet. “He is a very kind young man and any information is good. He is enthusiastic and wants to get better. I love seeing that. It reminds me of how I was and still want to be.
“I appreciate them asking me for advice, but I don’t want to be viewed as the old guy.”