Josef Newgarden has unveiled his second and latest visage on the iconic Borg-Warner Trophy to commemorate his victory in last May’s 108th running of the Indianapolis 500. The Team Penske-Chevrolet driver enjoyed a thrilling eight-lap duel with Arrow McLaren-Chevy’s Pato O’Ward that culminated in Newgarden making a last-lap pass around the outside into Turn 3 and holding on to win by 0.3417s.
Not only did Newgarden score Penske’s 20th Indy 500 victory, he became the first driver to conquer the race in consecutive years since Helio Castroneves achieved the feat, also with Penske, in 2001 and ’02. This earned Newgarden a $440,000 rollover bonus from BorgWarner and brought his total winnings to $4.288m.
Newgarden revealed the likeness, sculpted by William Behrends, in a celebration hosted by IMS at CoHatch Polk Stables in downtown Indianapolis.
“The Borg-Warner Trophy is as iconic as it gets in professional sports and seeing my likeness represented on it will never get old,” said Newgarden.
“When you win, you are honored an entire year, which is amazing. Getting to work with Will is a treat because he is so meticulous. As a racecar driver I can definitely relate to his attention to detail. Hopefully we can do something historic next year and we can work with him again.”
Newgarden told RACER, “The big difference between this year and last was that we were quick from the word go in the Month of May. Qualifying was a totally different story for us this year, and you don’t want to say it was a breeze, but we certainly had an easier time than we’d had the previous four years and Penske locked out the front row. And that changes the the way you operate on race day. It doesn’t make the race easy, but if you have good car speed, your decision-making is simpler. Our racecar was very similar to what we had last year, but it was faster.”
Newgarden doesn’t question why O’Ward resisted the temptation to pass him into Turn 3 on the penultimate lap, and instead got him along the front straight to start the final lap.
“If there had been a yellow as we went into Turn 1, then he wins the race,” he explains, “whereas if he’d passed me at Turn 3, I’d have drafted past him up the front straight and it would be me leading when the yellow comes.
“So I understand Pato’s rationale: it was hard to stay with the car ahead coming through Turn 1 and off Turn 2, so he probably thought that was the best plan. But I think we came off Turn 2 very fast relative to him on the last lap, and then he made a couple of those exaggerated moves to break the tow. Those kind of moves also scrub speed, and I concentrated on minimizing scrub, I used his tow and, like I say, I think we had already come off Turn 2 quicker.
“He of course had to protect the inside line into Turn 3, and I felt we could make it stick around the outside, get the pass done but still leave him enough space on the inside. It was either going to work or it wasn’t! But I wasn’t not going to try something: this was my opportunity and I had to go for it.”
After the race, Newgarden again went to greet the fans, but said the feelings of exhilaration were different from 2023 to ’24.
“It’s immense when you win this race,” he said, “and you can’t understand it until you go through the process. You see other people win and think, ‘I know what that would be like,’ and in fact you have no idea! But the magnitude of winning isn’t something that slowly sinks in; it hits you in the face right away.