Josef Newgarden wins IndyCar at Road America, earns a $1 million sponsor bonus

Associated PressJun 12, 2022, 4:00 PM EDT
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ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — Josef Newgarden earned a $1 million sponsor bonus Sunday for winning at Road America, where his third win of the season completed a trifecta of victories on IndyCar’s different circuits.

After winning on the oval at Texas and the street course in Long Beach this season, Newgarden headed to Road America searching for a road course win that would make him the first IndyCar driver this season to win on all three circuits.

The reward was a $1 million payout from The PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge, which split the bonus between Team Penske and charities of Newgarden’s choice. It’s part of a new partnership between industrial staffing giant PeopleReady and IndyCar that will continue to award a $10,000 donation to every race winner for the remainder of the season – split between the driver, their team, and their charity of choice.

The Team Penske driver selected Wags and Walks of Nashville and SeriousFun Children’s Network. It was the first year of the challenge and claimed before the halfway point of the IndyCar season; Newgarden is the only driver with multiple wins through eight of 17 races.

“I was just trying to stay focused on what I had to do,” Newgarden told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “We’ve had a lot of success with this car, and Team Chevy’s bringing it with this engine.

“To finally get it done and to most importantly give that money to charity. Half that money is going to charity with SeriousFun Children’s Network and Wags and Walks Nashville. I hope they are happy about that. That’s a lot of money coming their way.”

Newgarden beat Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing by 3.371-seconds following two late restarts, but Ericsson reclaimed the points lead with the runner-up finish.

Alexander Rossi, the Andretti Autosport driver who started on the pole in search of his first win in three years, finished third and was followed by teammates Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta.

UNOFFICIAL RESULTS: Where everyone finished at Road America

Chevrolet won the race with Newgarden, but Honda took the next four spots. Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren SP and Scott McLaughlin of Penske were sixth and seventh for Chevy.

Newgarden had a 2.8-second lead over Rossi when Pato O’Ward’s engine failed with six laps remaining to set up the first late restart. Then Helio Castroneves spun for another caution.

Newgarden got a great jump on Rossi on both late restarts and never looked back.

Rossi had his hands full first with Ericsson, and then with his own teammates, as his losing streak extended to 45 races. His pole-winning run Saturday was his first in three years.

Newgarden won for the second time at Road America, but he was headed toward the win a year ago until his gearbox failed in the closing laps and it handed the win to reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou.

Palou’s chances of defending last year’s win vanished almost immediately due to an early tangle with Ganassi teammate Ericsson. When Ericsson made a move to Palou’s inside, the right rear of the Swede’s car made contact with the front left of Palou’s, and the Spaniard went off course.

“He was trying to win the race on the third lap,” Palou said. “The car broke. That’s it. Game over.”

In a postrace interview with NBC Sports’ Kevin Lee, Ericsson apologized to Palou for the contact but also said he felt it was “a nice racing move” and a justifiable action.

Will Power, meanwhile, dropped from the IndyCar points lead because of his own early incident. A poor qualifying effort put Power in 15th at the start and he was hit from behind by rookie Devlin DeFrancesco just eight laps into the race. Power ended up 19th.

“Man, you can’t really do much about it,” Power said. “He is a young guy and he’s made some big moves this year that resulted in some incidents.”

DeFrancesco received a stop-and-go penalty for making avoidable contact, and Power dropped to second in the standings, 27 points behind Ericsson.

O’Ward’s engine failure dropped him from third to fourth in the standings; Palou dropped from fourth to fifth. The win for Newgarden, meanwhile, moved him from fifth to third in the points.

Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson had a frustrating day because of contact with Tatiana Calderon at the back of the pack on the first lap. Johnson went off course to bring out a full-course yellow. He finished 24th.

Calderon was in the field with Simona de Silvestro, marking the first time an IndyCar event has included two female drivers since de Silvestro and Pippa Mann entered the 2015 Indianapolis 500.

“I think it was really important to finish this race,” said de Silvestro, who was making her first start on an IndyCar road course in nearly nine years. “We had so much going on with me getting back in the car, getting to know the team again and working with my engineer. But we finished and I think we can be pretty happy because things started to come together at the end. It’s something to build on.”

Winner Josef Newgarden earns $3.666 million from a record Indy 500 purse of $17 million

By May 29, 2023, 6:01 PM EDT
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INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33.  Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports