Andretti Autosport's Alexander Rossi believes Josef Newgarden was the 'right guy' to win the 2019 NTT IndyCar title.
Rossi ultimately lost out on a maiden IndyCar title to Newgarden by 33 points, a smaller gap than his loss to Chip Ganassi's Scott Dixon in 2018 where he finished 57 points behind the Kiwi.
The Californian driver explained how the 2019 season was meant one of minimising mistakes and becoming more consistent and believes he and his team achieved that target.
However, he could not legislate for Newgarden's own consistency as the Penske driver led the 2019 championship for all but one of the 17 races.
After the double-points finale, Rossi could only finish in sixth-place and with Newgarden in eighth, which proved not enough to overhaul the points deficit.
"I think we minimized a lot of our mistakes last year," said Rossi. "Ultimately I think in one way or another, we gave Scott a championship. I think we didn't do that this year.
I think just Penske and the 2 car specifically were stronger than us, and that's going to happen. You can't take away from the fact that Josef led all but one race this season. And from a sporting perspective, probably the right guy won.
"He came into this thing with a pretty big lead, and if it had gone away on double points, I would have loved it, but ultimately it probably wouldn't have been the outcome that should have happened.
"Josef did a great job, Simon did a good job there at the end, and we just were a couple points short."
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