There’s curbing one’s appetite, curb appeal of a house and then what happened to Josef Newgarden in Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto.
Newgarden smacked a piece of curbing so hard on Lap 57 (of 85 laps) that he wound up wrecking.
And with that wreck, so went Newgarden’s hopes for a top-10 finish -- and potentially a second consecutive win, having won the week before at Iowa.
Instead, Newgarden, who started eighth in Sunday’s race, learned a very valuable lesson: what it’s like to be on top one week (winning at Iowa), and then be on the bottom (finishing last at Toronto) the next week.
Here’s what Newgarden had to say about his incident:
“It (was) an error on my part,” he said. “I hate to blame it on an injury, but I hit the curb too hard and lost the wheel.
“I couldn’t hang on to the wheel. I didn’t have the strength to hold on to the wheel. I feel terrible for our guys. We had a good race going. We were fighting back.
“We got put back for an incident that I don’t think was our fault. We fought our way back. We could have had a good finish there. It was my mistake and I feel bad because we are going to lose some points there.”
Indeed, Newgarden dropped from second place after his win at Iowa to fifth after his early exit at Toronto. He’s now 88 points behind series leader Simon Pagenaud.
Newgarden hopes his hand is in better shape for the next race at Mid-Ohio next weekend.
“It’s just sore,” Newgarden said of his injured paw. “I wish my grip strength was better right now but it’s not; probably not where I need to be.
“I should have stayed off the curb. I knew better than to hit it that hard with my grip strength where it is.”
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