Josef Newgarden is coming off one of his toughest years in IndyCar, finishing the season 12th in the overall standings.
His performance was partially on account of troubles at Team Penske, which struggled to adapt to a management shuffle in the wake of disqualification from Indianapolis 500 qualifying.
Three total podiums and a win at the season finale in Nashville did little to overcome a wave of poor results that led to his worst championship position since 2014.
“Yeah, I don’t think [the win at] Nashville really does anything, to be honest,” said Newgarden, denying that momentum would carry over to 2026.
“I was just happy the year was over. Yeah, I think it will be a hard reset, for sure, when you come to St. Pete.
“I think certainly we have a lot of changes. I think the core of the team is very similar to what people will have known with Team Penske. By ‘core’ I mean the heart, sort of the people.
“A lot of that is not changing. It will very much be Team Penske like we’ve always known it. Some of the structure is going to be different. Some of the way we different will be a little bit different.
“Change can be a good thing. We can just improve some of the things that we’ve been doing. We’re going to look to be better versions of ourselves coming into this year.
“We obviously hold ourselves very accountable for a high standard. We’re trying to just be the best versions of ourselves as we possibly can.”
More ups and downs?
Consistency is one of the hallmarks of Newgarden’s driving style over the years, which has helped him secure two championship wins.
When that consistency broke down, however, his demeanor changed as well and fed back into even more irregular results.
Fixing that issue is top of the mind for the 35-year-old as he looks to get back into the form that helped him finish in the top two positions of the standings for five of six years from 2017-2022.
“To be more consistent,” said Newgarden of next year’s goal. “For us we just can’t have as many bad results as we had.
“There’s a lot of them that could have been different. They’re not. So we’ve just got to focus on being more consistent.
“It’s kind of simple to say that, but that’s just what it will come down to. If we don’t want to finish 12th in the standings, we’ve got to finish more races.”
The first race of the 2026 season gets underway in just a couple weeks on the streets of St. Petersburg.
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