Newgarden continues second half run of form with P6 in Sonoma - MotorSportsTalk

After a rough stretch of races from the Grand Prix of Indianapolis through Houston, Josef Newgarden and the Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing squad continued their solid second half of the Verizon IndyCar Series season with their best performance yet at Sonoma.

Newgarden qualified second on Saturday, and the good news continued early Sunday morning for both he and the team with the confirmation he’d stay at the merged CFH Racing team – Fisher, Hartman and Ed Carpenter come together in 2015.

“We have that continuity as a group,” Fisher told MotorSportsTalk Sunday morning after the deal was announced. “What Josef’s done, what this team has done in his gelling with Jeremy (Milless, engineer) and the rest of this group has been great. We went from being nowhere here two years ago to front row now, and it’s because of that continuity.”

If Sunday’s GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma would have gone true to form based purely on the qualifying order, Newgarden again could have made the podium.

But varying strategies and a big temperature change – Sunday’s race ran with ambient more than 10 and track temperature more than 20 degrees warmer than the morning – negatively affected the race for the No. 67 Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing Honda crew.

Newgarden ended sixth after starting second, and that finish marked his best result on a road or street course this season.

Overall, it’s his fourth top-10 finish in the last seven races, after only posting two in the first 10 of the year. As a result, he’s climbed from 20th to 13th in the points standings after this stretch.

“I think the temperature hurt us quite a bit,” Newgarden said in the team’s post-race release. “It was a hot day, and it just didn’t suit what we were doing very well. We were much better in the morning when it was cooler, and we just weren’t as strong when the temperature went up and also as the track got slower from dust and wind pickup.

“It just got slower all afternoon, and we just got worse, and it didn’t cater to what we were doing setup-wise. The tire degradation was tough today. We were out to lunch on that, and I think that was all attributed to temperature. We were strong in some aspects, but the temperature hurt us.”

But compared to the last two years, the team made major strides. Newgarden started 22nd and ended 23rd in 2012, but suffered a broken finger after an accident. Things didn’t get much better last year when he started 17th and ended 24th with a mechanical.

“I think the positive to take away from this weekend is that we secured a solid top-10 result on one of our more difficult tracks over the last couple of years,” Newgarden said. “We’ve made big strides in what we’re doing and the direction we’ve gone.”

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The NTT IndyCar Series will return to the Motor City for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix but with start times in a new location for 2023.

After a 30-year run on Belle Isle, the Detroit GP has moved a few miles south to the streets of downtown on a new nine-turn, 1.645-mile circuit that runs along the Detroit River.

It’s the first time single-seater open-cockpit cars have raced on the streets of Detroit since a CART event on a 2.5-mile downtown layout from 1989-91. Formula One also raced in Detroit from 1982-88.

The reimagined Detroit Grand Prix also will play host to nightly concerts and bring in venders from across the region. Roger Penske predicts the new downtown locale will be bigger for Detroit than when the city played host to the 2006 Super Bowl.

Here are the details and IndyCar start times for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach race weekend (all times are ET):

CHEVROLET DETROIT GRAND PRIX INDYCAR START TIMES

TV: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET on NBC and streaming on Peacock, the NBC Sports App and NBCSports.com. Leigh Diffey is the announcer with analysts Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe. Dave Burns, Marty Snider and Kevin Lee are the pit reporters. Click here for the full NBC Sports schedule for IndyCar in 2023.

Peacock also will be the streaming broadcast for both practices and qualifying.

POSTRACE SHOW ON PEACOCK: After the race’s conclusion, an exclusive postrace show will air on Peacock with driver interviews, postrace analysis and the podium presentation. To watch the extended postrace show, click over to the special stream on Peacock after Sunday’s race ends.

COMMAND TO START ENGINES: 3:23 p.m. ET

GREEN FLAG: 3:30 p.m. ET

PRACTICE: Friday, 3 p.m. (Peacock Premium); Saturday, 9:05 a.m. (Peacock Premium); Sunday, 10 a.m. (Peacock Premium)

PRACTICE RESULTS: Session I l Session II l Warmup l Combined

QUALIFYING: Saturday, 1:20 p.m. (Peacock Premium)

STARTING LINEUP: Alex Palou captured the first street course pole of his IndyCar career; click here for where everyone will begin Sunday’s race

RACE DISTANCE: The race is 100 laps (170 miles) on a nine-turn, 1.645-mile temporary street course in downtown Detroit.

TIRE ALLOTMENT: Seven sets primary, four sets alternate. Rookie drivers are allowed one extra primary set for the first practice.

PUSH TO PASS: 150 seconds of total time with a maximum time of 15 seconds per activation (Indy NXT: 150 seconds total, 15 seconds per). The push-to-pass is not available on the initial start or any restart unless it occurs in the final two laps or three minutes of a timed race. The feature increases the power of the engine by approximately 60 horsepower.

FORECAST: According to Wunderground.com, it’s expected to be 80 degrees with a 0% chance of rain.

ENTRY LIST: Click here to view the 27 drivers racing Sunday at Detroit

INDY NXT RACES: Saturday, 12:05 p.m. 45 laps/55 minutes (Peacock Premium); Sunday, 12:50 p.m. 45 laps/55 minutes (Peacock Premium)

INDY NXT ENTRY LIST: Click here to view the 19 drivers racing at Detroit