Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden insists he requires help in order to overhaul the vast points gap to leader Scott Dixon with currently three races remaining of the 2020 NTT IndyCar Series campaign.
Newgarden became the only other multiple race winner in 2020 after claiming victory at the second race of the Bommarito Automotive Group 500, but still remains 96 points behind Dixon with just potentially three races left on the schedule.
With the double-points rule suspended for the final round of the championship, as it stands Dixon only needs to outscore Newgarden by just 12 points at the Harvest Grand Prix to claim a sixth driver’s title.
IndyCar is currently trying to reorganise the postponed Mid-Ohio round inside the gap in the calendar somewhere inside the month of September, this could provide the Penske driver with an extra opportunity to try and reduce the gap.
“It’s getting hard now,” said Newgarden. “Yesterday was just tough. It’s just tough. We keep taking a step forward and then two steps backwards.
“If we can flip that where we take at least two steps forward and maybe a step back, it’s okay, you’re coming out with a net win. We can’t quite claw forward.
“We just can’t have situations like yesterday where the yellow bites us. We can’t afford that. We cannot afford that with the amount of points we are down.
“If that type of situation keeps happening to us, then unfortunately you’re never going to claw back where we’re at right now.
“It’s just not going to happen. But I believe we can. If those things stop happening, I think we can fight him with. It’s tough. We have to have some help.”
Despite the gulf in points, Newgarden believes he has been driving well all season but luck has just not fallen his way and accepts the situation he finds himself in.
“I don’t want to harp on it because it’s racing,” he added. “I’ve had years where we’ve had everything go our way, and Scott has been on the opposite end of that. It kind of ebbs and flows. You can’t complain too much because it goes back and forth.
“This year we’ve been doing a great job. We have had good cars. We’ve bitten one too many times with bad luck. Just been hoping it’s going to stop at some point and unfortunately it hasn’t completely stopped yet.”
Officially, Pato O’Ward and Takuma Sato still have a chance at their maiden titles as well, but their chances are extraordinarily slim at this point.
The Harvest Grand Prix double-header from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course is scheduled for October 2-3.
