INDYCAR: Josef Newgarden’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad season continues at Mid-Ohio
by William Soquet / LASTCAR.info Staff Writer
SCREENCAP: Fox
Josef Newgarden finished last for the 7th time in his NTT IndyCar Series career in Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course when his #2 PPG Chevrolet crashed out after completing 1 of the race’s 90 laps.
The finish came in Newgarden’s 225th career start and was his first since Long Beach earlier this season, seven races ago. Across IndyCar Series history, it was the 18th for the #2, the 123rd for Chevrolet, and the 240th for damage-related reasons.
What seemed like a freak seat belt accident dropped Newgarden to last at Long Beach, compounding a nightmare 2025 season. He was a pedestrian 10th at Barber while teammate Scott McLaughlin stood on the podium, then ran another middling race en route to 12th at the Indianapolis road course. Of course, there was the fiasco that was the Indianapolis 500: a late disqualification before the pole shootout sent him to the back row and separated Newgarden from strategist Tim Cindric, who was fired as part of the fallout. A spirited drive through the field, cracking the Top Ten around the midpoint of the race, only to be derailed by fuel pressure problems. A quest to become the first driver to win three 500s in a row finished in the garage.
Things somehow became even worse after Indianapolis. The nightmare began in earnest at Gateway, where Newgarden was leading early in the race but was part of a vicious crash when Louis Foster spun directly in front of Newgarden on the frontstretch. Newgarden’s car climbed on the side of the pit wall but stayed on the track, avoiding further calamity on pit road. After showing a bit of speed in practice for the next race at Road America, Newgarden turned heads early in the race by making contact with McLaughlin before simply losing it off the final corner and spinning into the tire barriers, knocking the suspension out of alignment and ending his race. The lone bright spot was at Detroit, where Newgarden claimed his third top-ten result of the season, finishing ninth.
All the gremlins had a marked effect on Newgarden’s points position as well. He sat a paltry 17th in the standings heading into Mid-Ohio, ranking worse than all but his 2011 rookie campaign, where he missed a race and finished 23rd in the standings.
But at the start of the Mid-Ohio weekend, things appeared to be turning around. He was fourth on the charts in first practice, running over a second faster than the slowest driver, Felix Rosenqvist. However, things started to unravel from there. Newgarden slipped to 11th in second practice, just over a half-second faster than 27th-place Robert Shwartzman. Qualifying was not kind to Newgarden either. He was ninth in Group 2, yielding a starting position of 19th. However, he was still a mere three hundredths of a second from advancing to the second round of qualifying, as Alexander Rossi, David Malukas and Rosenqvist were all within that margin from sixth to eighth. Shwartzman was the final car in that group and secured the final spot on the grid, needing to climb from there to avoid back-to-back last-place finishes.
Newgarden declined to give an interview after his first-round exit from qualifying, something that became a bit of a hot-button topic in the 24 hours that followed. Long known in the paddock as the competitor’s competitor, an image that only became more visible with the miniseries 100 Days to Indy, this recent string of unfortunate events have led to multiple instances where Newgarden has not given a television interview. Warranted or not, there was certainly chatter around the pilot of the #2 before the green flag dropped on Sunday.
Everything looked set for a tidy start as the field got up to speed on the “backstretch” at Mid-Ohio, where they take the initial two-wide start in between Turns 3 and 4. However, at the braking zone for Turn 4, Newgarden’s car emitted a puff of smoke and snapped to driver’s left. He darted across the track in the path of Graham Rahal, then spun into the grass. The car’s rear wing impacted the barrier at the entrance of the corner, and the car spun once more before the nose crashed into a separate section of barrier. Rahal stalled in the sand and was unable to get restarted, and to make matters worse for Team Penske, McLaughlin and Will Power collided trying to avoid the incident.
While Newgarden initially said there wasn’t too much damage on the car, his machine never returned to the track over the course of the race, leaving him in last place. His points position consequently slid as well, landing at 19th, directly behind Conor Daly and ahead of Marcus Ericsson. He did give a brief interview to FOX after the crash, quelling conversations of his lack of an interview after Saturday’s qualifying session.
Power’s was the next car to retire, as he pulled into pit road with an engine fire after completing only 11 laps. Christian Rasmussen was 25th, out of gas on track after a pit road miscue. Ramussen’s car was towed outside of the track instead of to the garage, much to team owner Ed Carpenter’s dismay. Rahal lost a lap in the opening sequence and was the last car running at the end of the race. McLaughlin dealt with tire issues in the race’s final stint that resulted in an unscheduled stop, dropping him to 23rd at race’s end and completing a Bottom Five trifecta for Team Penske.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This season is the first time since 2016 that Newgarden has finished last multiple times in a season. The 2016 season saw him finish last at Toronto and Texas.
*Of Newgarden’s seven last-place finishes, this is the first to come on a permanent road course. He tallies three apiece on ovals and street courses.
*Newgarden is the sixth straight Mid-Ohio last-place finisher to complete less than 10 laps. Marco Andretti’s 74 laps completed in the first twin 2020 race is the last time any last-place finisher has made it more than 10 laps.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
27) #2-Josef Newgarden / 1 lap / crash
26) #12-Will Power / 11 laps / engine
25) #21-Christian Rasmussen / 36 laps / out of gas
24) #15-Graham Rahal / 89 laps / running
23) #3-Scott McLaughlin / 89 laps / running
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES OWNERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Team Penske (4)
2nd) Dale Coyne Racing, Prema Racing (2)
3rd) Chip Ganassi Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (1)
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES MANUFACTURERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (6)
2nd) Honda (4)
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
