Team Penske IndyCar title challenger Josef Newgarden says a 1% chance of the title is “all we need”, as he looks to overturn a large deficit to Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon in the season finale at St Petersburg this weekend.
Dixon won the first three races of the season and has led the standings all the way through in pursuit of his sixth IndyCar title. Addressing that stat, he joked it is “only fair that Josef lets us lead the whole season…”
Despite Dixon scoring four consecutive top-10s in the last four races, in that period Newgarden has eaten into the championship lead dramatically, reducing the deficit from 96 to 32 in what is a two-horse race for the Astor Cup.
Newgarden was the last IndyCar winner at St Petersburg, in 2019 (below), but even if he wins, a ninth-place finish would secure Dixon the title.
“I love on the fact sheet, I saw this put out, it was like 20,000 scenarios, 1% of the scenarios means we can win the championship,” said Newgarden. “You’re saying there’s a chance and that’s all we need.
“It’s going to be an exciting weekend. We’ll see how it shakes out. We’re just going to go into our thing, see where everything lands at the end of it.”
Crunching the numbers
There are 50 points on offer for a win, with an additional four bonus points on offer. Those are a point each for pole and leading a lap and two points for leading the highest number of laps in the race.
Unless Dixon – on 502 points – is unable to finish the race or has serious problems, Newgarden knows it’s likely he needs to win the race as he has 470.
However, if Dixon manages 10th, Newgarden will still need three or more bonus points to take the title. If he manages only two bonus points – by taking pole and leading a lap, but not the most laps – the two drivers would be tied on 522 points.
In the event of a tie, most race wins decides it. Dixon has four, Newgarden has three. So a win at St Pete for Newgarden would tie the drivers on wins, too.
However, Newgarden confirmed he wouldn’t be overdriving a car not capable of winning because he’ll “probably end up in the wall doing that”.
In a tie-break scenario the drivers’ title would be decided on most number of second-place finishes, and Dixon would prevail.
Even if Dixon retires and merely claims the least number of points available this weekend – six – Newgarden would still have to finish second to guarantee the title. He could do it with third place, but would need the full array of bonus points.
Dixon still regrets a spin at Mid-Ohio where he was due to take points away from Newgarden, which probably would have led to the title being wrapped up before the finale for the first time in 15 consecutive seasons.
“For us, we try to typically keep it pretty simple,” said Dixon.
“I would say that was not the case for the last few races, which got us into a bit of a tailspin. Josef and Team Penske, him and his team-mates, have been doing a fantastic job.
“I think we’re still lucky to be in the situation that we are, the points lead that we do have.
“As we all know, that doesn’t guarantee you anything.
“The series is renowned for throwing some curves in situations like this. It’s always exciting.
“We tried to stop it going down to the last race, but we came up short.”
What else is at stake?
The rookie of the year picture is much clearer. Just starting the race will give Rinus VeeKay the title.
A very inconsistent year from peaky rookie Alex Palou and a string of bad results for Oliver Askew after racing through a concussion from an Indianapolis 500 crash – where he was leading the rookie standings – have allowed VeeKay to push clear.
In the manufacturers’ championship, Honda merely needs two cars in the top nine to win. Honda leads by 54 with 96 available.
There’s also an extremely important fight for the last full-time entry to secure 22nd in the entrants’ standings, as that’s the last position included in the Leaders Circle. Among other things, a Leaders Circle entry provides each team with a $1 million boost, which is around 20% of a seasonal budget.
The #98 Andretti entry piloted by Marco Andretti is currently outside those spots in 23rd, and in the best-case scenario for Andretti, he’ll need to outscore Sebastien Bourdais by eight points to jump into the top 22.
