JOSEF NEWGARDEN No. 2 PPG DALLARA/CHEVROLET
START – 7TH
FINISH – 15TH
POINTS – 6TH (-25)
RACE RUNDOWN: Josef Newgarden and the No. 2 PPG Chevrolet team finished 15th in Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park due to an ill-handling machine likely caused by contact at the start of the race. The two-time winner at Barber started from the seventh position but on the initial laps he was contacted in the rear by another competitor. Newgarden immediately felt something amiss but soldiered on and eventually took the lead on Lap 31. As the race progressed, however, the unidentified problem worsened, especially as the Firestone tires began to wear. The drive quality eventually took its toll and Newgarden dropped back through the field to finish in the 15th position.
NEWGARDEN’S THOUGHTS: “It sure felt like it (was from the early contact). It’s hard to say, but right after this hit, I felt like I had a right rear going down. So, I radioed in for them to check the right rear pressure and it looked fine, but something else felt very odd. The story of the race was that when there were new tires on the car, it was drivable. It was off, definitely the right to left asymmetrically off, but it was drivable on new tires. And that was masking it. The problem was the left rear was getting destroyed, which is not the tire that was hit. But whatever was going on over here, was having some effect over there. We just couldn’t hang on at all and it went bad. I just wish we had the car that we had in warmup, and we would have been just fine. But this was just evil. Just an evil-handling car. We were literally just holding on the whole race. Every second after was just a disaster and what a shame because obviously, we had the winning strategy. It was a great day for Team Penske so I am obviously happy for the team, but we were in position and another one just gets away. This one got away pretty badly. So, very demoralizing for the whole group.”
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
