No. 2 Hitachi Dallara/Chevrolet – Josef Newgarden
Start: 8th
Finish: 23rd
Status: Running
Laps Completed: 0/90
Laps Led: 0
Points Position: 23rd (-46 pts)
Josef Newgarden and the No. 2 Hitachi Chevrolet team entered Sunday’s INDYCAR Grand Prix of Alabama looking for their third NTT INDYCAR SERIES win – and Newgarden’s fourth career victory – at the Alabama circuit. However, an incident on the first lap of competition left them with a 23rd-place finish and early exit in the opening round of the 2021 season.
Newgarden narrowly missed out on the Firestone Fast Six during the Saturday qualifying session, as he started Sunday’s race from the eighth position. After a clean green flag start into the first corner, the No. 2 Chevrolet got loose and Newgarden’s lost the back end once the car went off track which caused a multi-car accident. The ensuing impact with the No. 28 car driven by Ryan Hunter-Reay left Newgarden’s Chevrolet with too much damage to continue. He was credited with a 23rd-place finish.
Quote: “I got loose coming over the hill. It was a good start. We were lining in pretty nicely, but I just got loose in the wake. I thought I had the car and then touched the grass and I think once I touched the grass it pitched me sideways. I feel really bad for anyone that got involved in that. Obviously, my mess created a bigger mess. Any of the cars that got involved, I’m real sorry because it was obviously us that tipped it off. It’s a shame. I feel like we had a really good car. We just needed to file-in there at the start. We partially did that but yeah. But we’ll come back. We’ve just got to bounce back at the next one.”
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
