Josef Newgarden to Romain Grosjean after Nashville collision: ‘Welcome to IndyCar’

By Aug 7, 2022, 9:00 PM EDT
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Josef Newgarden had no apologies for Romain Grosjean but does have some admonitions for the younger set in the NTT IndyCar Series after another wild Music City Grand Prix.

The hometown favorite finished sixth on the 11-turn, 2.1-mile street course after emerging on the more favorable side of a Turn 9 collision with Romain Grosjean on a Lap 76 restart.

Grosjean, who battled through the corner for position after Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet dove underneath, wound up in the wall with his No. 28 Dallara-Honda. The Andretti Autosport driver gestured angrily multiple times about the wreck, waving his arms at Newgarden’s car under caution.

COMEBACK HISTORY: Scott Dixon wins wild Music City Grand Prix

“Welcome to IndyCar; it gets tight,” Newgarden told NBC Sports’ Dillon Welch after watching the replay and deciding his move was fair. “He’s been on a worse end of that. I don’t know what to tell him. Good thing I was ahead. That’s the biggest thing. You’re going to want to be ahead of this guy at this type of moment, but yep, it’s tight street course racing.

“Let me tell you what: I about got taken out six times myself. I probably need to have some discussion with some of the younger guys, but they’re aggressive. They’re very aggressive and if you’re not aggressive back, then you get run over. That’s IndyCar racing. You’ve got to learn that pretty quick. I don’t like it, but that’s the game that we’re in.”

Last year’s inaugural Nashville race had produced nine caution flags, and drivers had predicted a smoother affair after IndyCar moved the restart zone to the Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge entering Turn 9.

But the collision between Grosjean and Newgarden was one of several shunts throughout the Lap 80 race, which still produced eight cautions, a red flag and piles of damaged front wings and carbon fiber.

Grosjean also made contact with Marcus Ericsson, leading to a snippy postrace sequence on social media between the Formula One veterans. Ericsson, who finished 14th because of a mechanical failure, also retweeted a suggestion that Grosjean applied a double standard.

It’s not the first time the Frenchman has been in the middle of controversial contact this season after feuding with teammate Alexander Rossi at Mid-Ohio and with Graham Rahal (who suggested several IndyCar drivers were unhappy with Grosjean) after Barber Motorsports Park.

Later Sunday night on Twitter, Newgarden took on many Grosjean defenders and suggested the Andretti Autosport driver had been guilty of rougher driving.

Newgarden, who grew up and resides in Nashville, led 12 laps in trying to win with an off-sequence three-stop strategy, but the Team Penske driver remained in title contention. The two-time series champion is ranked fourth, 32 points behind teammate Will Power, with three races remaining.

“Ultimately we had a big fight back with the PPG car and Team Chevy,” said Newgarden, who has a series-high four wins. “That’s all I can say. This has been a really frustrating year in a lot of ways and the way it’s built. We’ve won a lot of races. We’ve had a ton of good luck. All thanks to the team and the effort they’ve put in, but more than not, we’re either winning the race, or things are completely going against us one way or another.

“So it’s built frustration for me because it’s hard to see that happen for this crew when they work so hard. I hate it, too. I’m very competitive, and it happens a couple of times a year where things don’t go your way. It’s part of the luck, but it’s just happened one too many times, and today was another unlucky day with just the way the whole thing played out, and you just can’t predict these races. It’s part of the game, but it can be frustrating at times.”

Roger Penske vows new downtown Detroit GP will be bigger than the Super Bowl for city

By Jun 1, 2023, 2:00 PM EDT
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DETROIT – He helped spearhead bringing the town a Super Bowl 17 years ago, but Roger Penske believes the reimagined Chevrolet Detroit GP is his greatest gift to the Motor City.

“It’s bigger than the Super Bowl from an impact within the city,” Penske told NBC Sports. “Maybe not with the sponsors and TV, but for the city of Detroit, it’s bigger than the Super Bowl.

“We’ve got to give back individually and collectively, and I think we as a company in Michigan and in Detroit, it’s something we know how to do. It shows we’re committed. Someone needs to take that flag and run it down through town. And that’s what we’re trying to do as a company. We’re trying to give back to the city.”

After 30 years of being run on Belle Isle, the race course has been moved to a new nine-turn, 1.7-mile downtown layout that will be the centerpiece of an event weekend that is designed to promote a festival and community atmosphere.

There will be concerts in the adjacent Hart Plaza. Local businesses from Detroit’s seven districts have been invited to hawk their wares to new clientele. Boys and Girls Clubs from the city have designed murals that will line the track’s walls with images of diversity, inclusion and what Detroit means through the eyes of youth.

And in the biggest show of altruism, more than half the circuit will be open for free admission. The track is building 4-foot viewing platforms that can hold 150 people for watching the long Jefferson Avenue straightaway and other sections of the track.

Detroit GP chairman Bud Denker, a longtime key lieutenant across Penske’s various companies, has overseen more than $20 million invested in infrastructure.

The race is essentially Penske’s love letter to the city where he made much of his fame as one of Detroit’s most famous automotive icons, both as a captain of industry with a global dealership network and as a racing magnate (who just won his record 19th Indy 500 with Josef Newgarden breaking through for his first victory on the Brickyard oval).

During six decades in racing, Penske, 86, also has run many racetracks (most notably Indianapolis Motor Speedway but also speedways in Michigan, California and Pennsylvania), and much of that expertise has been applied in Detroit.

“And then the ability for us to reach out to our sponsor base, and then the business community, which Bud is tied in with the key executives in the city of Detroit, bringing them all together,” Penske said. “It makes a big difference.

“The Super Bowl is really about the people that fly in for the Super Bowl. It’s a big corporate event, and the tickets are expensive. And the TV is obviously the best in the world. What we’ve done is taken that same playbook but made it important to everyone in Detroit. Anyone that wants to can come to the race for free, can stand on a platform or they can buy a ticket and sit in the grandstands or be in a suite. It’s really multiple choice, but it is giving it to the city of Detroit. I think it’s important when you think of these big cities across the country today that are having a lot of these issues.”

Denker said the Detroit Grand Prix is hoping for “an amazingly attended event” but is unsure of crowd estimates with much of the track offering free viewing. The race easily could handle a crowd of at least 50,000 daily (which is what the Movement Music Festival draws in Hart Plaza) and probably tens of thousands more in a sprawling track footprint along the city’s riverwalk.

Penske is hoping for a larger crowd than Belle Isle, which was limited to about 30,000 fans daily because of off-site parking and restricted fan access at a track that was located in a public park.

The downtown course will have some unique features, including a “split” pit lane on an all-new concrete (part of $15 million spent on resurfaced roads, new barriers and catchfencing … as well as 252 manhole covers that were welded down).

A $5 million, 80,000-square-foot hospitality chalet will be located adjacent to the paddock and pit area. The two-story structure, which was imported from the 16th hole of the Waste Management Open in Phoenix, will offer 70 chalets (up from 23 suites at Belle Isle last year). It was built by InProduction, the same company that installed the popular HyVee-branded grandstands and suites at Iowa Speedway last year.

Penske said the state, city, county and General Motors each owned parts of the track, and their cooperation was needed to move streetlights and in changing apexes of corners. Denker has spent the past 18 months meeting with city council members who represent Detroit’s seven districts, along with Mayor Mike Duggan. Penske said the local support could include an appearance by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer.

Denker and Detroit GP  president Michael Montri were inspired to move the Detroit course downtown after attending the inaugural Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, Tennessee.

“We saw what an impact it made on that city in August of 2021 and we came back from there and said boy could it ever work to bring it downtown in Detroit again,” Denker said. “We’ve really involved the whole community of Detroit, and the idea of bringing our city together is what the mayor and city council and our governor are so excited about. The dream we have is now coming to fruition.

“When you see the infrastructure downtown and the bridges over the roads we’ve built and the graphics, and everything is centered around the Renaissance Center as your backdrop, it’s just amazing.”