At the start of the 2024 IndyCar season, it was confirmed that Josef Newgarden’s contract with Team Penske will expire at the end of the year.
Not that there was ever any doubt, but days after winning his second consecutive Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the 33-year-old Hendersonville, Tennessee native has officially signed a multi-year contract extension to continue driving the No. 2 Chevrolet for the foreseeable future.
In a loaded free agent class that included the likes of Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard, and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay, Newgarden was the clear top driver, and after Newgarden hinted that an agreement was on the horizon, it has now been confirmed that his status at Team Penske will remain unchanged.
The first key domino in what promises to be another entertaining IndyCar season will have to fall elsewhere.
Josef Newgarden will stay with Team Penske.
Newgarden joined Team Penske in 2017 to replace Juan Pablo Montoya, and he has been nothing but successful with Roger Penske’s team.
Prior to 2024, Newgarden won 26 races in seven full seasons driving the No. 2 Chevrolet, including at least three in six of those years. Even though he did not win three races that season, he won twice and finished second in the championship standings.
No other driver won more than 16 races over that time period.
Newgarden won the titles in 2017 and 2019 with four-win seasons, and he has only finished lower than second in the team standings twice, in fifth place. In 2022, he won a career-high five races on his way to one of his three point finishes as runner-up.
Newgarden, who has won nine of the last twelve oval races, won the Indy 500 for the first time in 12 tries last year, and last weekend, he became the first driver to win the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” in back-to-back years since former Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002.
Through five of the 17 races on the 2024 schedule, Newgarden is in seventh place in the point standings, however he would be second if he had not been disqualified from the season opener in St. Petersburg, Florida and deprived of his win.
Newgarden is one of only six drivers in IndyCar history to have at least 30 wins, two titles, and two Indy 500 wins. Three of them are named Unser (Al, Al Jr., and Bobby), while the remaining two are named A.J. Foyt and Dario Franchitti.
