CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS MEDIA AVAILABILITY TRANSCRIPT
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
January 10, 2024

ED CARPENTER, No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet:

THE MODERATOR: Wrapping up this morning’s session here at the Content Day 2024 with Ed Carpenter, back in the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, beginning his 22nd year in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, another oval program as he splits time with the 2023 Indy NXT by Firestone champion and Christian Rasmussen. How is your Content Day going?

ED CARPENTER: It seems quiet this year. It seems very quiet today.

THE MODERATOR: Looking ahead to the year, how is the team right now?

ED CARPENTER: It’s exciting, I think. Christian, it’s fun bringing a rookie along. There’s definitely challenges that come with it, but the excitement that you get out of a rookie driver getting his first opportunity is fun.

He and Rinus have really bonded pretty quickly, which is good to see, and Rinus has taken his more veteran leadership role pretty seriously.

But the two of them have really off the track bonded well. We haven’t had them on the track together yet, so I’m excited for that.

But these off-seasons can be long, but as we get to this time of year everything can happen fast, but I think things are going very well.

Q. Tell us about the new sponsorship. And I know obviously IMS is your favorite track, but if I’m not mistaken, Milwaukee is probably 2. Talk about going back to that track later in the fall for a double-header.

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, I think Milwaukee has always been a great venue. Everyone was sad when it didn’t work out the last time, so it’s great to get another opportunity to make it a great event.

I think we’ve learned a lot of things as a series and as teams since we last raced there that will hopefully make it a more successful event, so that’s great that it’s back.

Sad to see Texas go, but that’s the way things go.

Obviously, yeah, we’ve got some new colors that we’re showing here. There will be more announced later in detail, but GuyCare, just kind of a men-specific health clinic, they launched their flagship station in Utah this week. There will be a lot more happening around that and targeted around our schedule the rest of the year, so there will be more to come on that soon, but still within the RiskOn International, Todd Ault family of businesses that have supported us the past couple years, so thankful for that, and looking forward to more announcements with it.

Q. This off-season, outside of bringing Christian into the fold, Rinus taking on more of a leadership role, can you tell us anything more about trying to build up that team around those guys that I know is going to be a big focus for you guys from engineering and other departments within —

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, we haven’t had a ton of change. It’s hard right now to make drastic changes in our series. The personnel from mechanics to engineers, I’m proud of the fact that we’re able to keep people. I think we do a really good job with that. It’s hard to get people to move. Sometimes it’s restrictive. So there hasn’t been a ton of change.

But last year was a challenging year without a doubt. We had our struggles. I did feel like as the year went on and we got into the end of the year, our direction and focus was better.

We’ve been able to carry that on and kind of start over in a lot of the things where we felt like we were wrong. But again, you never know how good all those efforts are until we get on track.

The nature of the off-season, we’ve had one track day since the season ended, so there’s been very little room for validation of the work other than that one day. So excited to be getting on track here later in the month.

Q. That was the test with Christian shortly after Laguna?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, Christian and Oliver were both in the car.

Q. Several of the drivers that have come in so far this morning, I think most of them were involved in some sort of a dinner last night with Penske Entertainment leadership talking about the future of the series. I don’t know if you were present at that dinner, but from that or other talks that you’ve had with folks in the last couple weeks and months during the off-season that I know has been a little up and down for the series, there seems to be a lot of positivity from drivers that we’ve spoken to so far despite some of the things that have gone on. What is your perspective on where the series is and where it’s headed over this next couple months.

ED CARPENTER: It’s definitely been a different off-season. The cadence has been different. Obviously with a big change coming and being delayed from what was anticipated, I think that’s always a challenge, and it’s easy to be frustrated.

But at the same time, you have to focus on where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.

It’s definitely been a group effort from INDYCAR and Chevrolet and the manufacturers to the teams and a lot of the communication that’s gone on.

I think within the challenges, I think it’s been getting better and better, working collectively for what those solutions are to make sure we’re putting on the best racing possible.

I think we’re all excited to get to the hybrid era when that day comes, and coming up with the best way to get there so when it does come that it is what it’s supposed to be and not sacrificing the show for the fans and the teams.

Q. Do you have any plans still to run a third car at Indianapolis?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, it’s announced we’re running three at Indy. Myself, Rinus, and Christian will all be at the Indy 500.

Q. You just indicated that understandably you’re not satisfied with how last year turned out for ECR. Can you elaborate on what you guys have been working on over the winter to try and turn that situation around?

ED CARPENTER: I mean, never going to get into total details of what we’ve been working on, but I think there’s always an evolution and progress with what you’re developing as a team and around the engineering.

I would say some of the targets that we were aiming for last year weren’t necessarily on point, so just refocusing — I wouldn’t say we’ve totally reinvented anything, just improving the process of our simulation and everything else that gets us to a better spot.

It’s easy to try to start over when things don’t go well, but my experience over my 22 years is, one, it’s never one big thing, and, two, it’s just getting all the details correct, and we didn’t do a good enough job with that, especially early last year. I do feel like we were turning a corner at the end of last year.

Excited to carry that momentum and get started, and confident that we’re going to be in a stronger spot.

Q. I remember after Rinus’s rookie race in Texas, you famously said he needed to work a little bit on his sponginess. Going back to Christian versus Rinus, can you compare them? How are they in the way they approach this? Are there any similarities?

ED CARPENTER: I would say there’s a lot of similarities. They’re the same age now, so Christian’s rookie year, he’s older, so I would say — this isn’t a knock on Rinus whatsoever, but Christian is a little more mature than when we got Rinus just by nature of he’s the same age that Rinus currently is.

But from what we’ve seen so far in the car and the simulator, their styles are very similar. I think they’ll be the most complementary duo that we’ve had or as a pairing to Rinus in his time with the team, so that’s exciting.

Q. Just curious on a couple of things. You talked about Rinus’s leadership. I’m just curious where that maturity has grown into the fact — do you look at him taking that leadership role because of the way he maybe took a step forward with Ryan being his teammate the last half of the year? Is it a de facto? Is it experience?

ED CARPENTER: I think it’s all of the above. He gets more and more of his own experience. I’m sure there definitely was an effect from Ryan, just learning from a great teammate, a veteran teammate, a champion, an Indy 500 winner, being around that, seeing how he approaches it, and just getting older. His married now. Your life changes as you get older. Your perspective changes.

I think it’s all of those things.

Q. With Ryan coming in last year to kind of validate a few things, how significant was that for you guys to get pointed in the right direction for this off-season?

ED CARPENTER: It was helpful. I think he did everything that we asked him to do. And I never viewed it as a silver bullet or a quick fix, but Ryan is definitely someone that I trust and our team holds in high regard, and he came in and did a good job and definitely brought his experience to give us his opinion on where things were and continue evaluating that and getting back to where we want to be.

Q. The last one is with the hybrid but also with the fact that — your team in particular, with your team trying to find itself to get back into a competitive nature at the front of the field again, also while trying to figure out ways to go through this hybrid development, what’s the challenge there for you? How much percentage do you put towards focusing on the hybrid versus also trying to focus on some of those details, and how difficult is it to work on those details when a new power plant could also change the way the car feels, balance, et cetera?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, you have to do both. We don’t have any first-hand experience yet with the hybrid system. We are able to test some of it in simulation, so we are getting some experience in being able to learn at least in the virtual world kind of what’s changing, but until we can fully get that on track, you don’t have anything to compare and validate your simulation to.

You’re doing the best you can. Obviously we know the areas we need to focus from last year for things mostly being the same to start the year. Obviously there’s still a lot of new components that are going to be on the car in preparation for the hybrid, but we won’t fully know how that’s all going to change until we do get the hybrid on track.

We get some information from Chevrolet and the series, from those that have been doing the testing, but that’s all secondhand at this point.

Looking forward to getting firsthand knowledge to really dive into that and understand what the differences are and what we’re going to need to be trying to achieve.

Q. What’s your take on the Million Dollar Challenge?

ED CARPENTER: Are we talking Thermal?

Q. The Thermal Club.

ED CARPENTER: It’s interesting. To start with, I think everyone questioned what it was going to be like going there for the open test last year, and I think at the end of the day it exceeded our expectations.

This is going to be a new type of format for us to try, so I think it’s important — INDYCAR racing has always been an innovative sport going back to the very beginning, and you look around other sports and leagues, and everyone is doing something all the time to try to be innovative and create new excitement.

I think this is going to be a unique experiment, and it’s hard to really say what I think or how it’s going to go until we get into it, but I know it’s going to be a good experience from having been there last year.

But it’s definitely going to be a little odd going to a race event that doesn’t have points, so I think it’ll change the approach or what you’re ultimately able to accomplish over that weekend. But I’m sure it’s going to be fun.

Q. Is it odd that you have a no-points race after the season starts as opposed to an exhibition in preseason?

ED CARPENTER: I mean, I think if — I don’t know that it matters all that much, to be honest. At the end of the day, early in the season, you’re less focused on points just naturally than you are as the season winds on, so I’m sure once we get there, it’s going to feel more like a race than an exhibition just because we’re all competitors, and at the end of the day there’s a lot on the line with the challenge.

I do think it’s going to be important to go there and be strong quickly by the way the format is laid out. I don’t think it’ll be the easiest place to overtake. So speed and qualifying is going to be vastly important to give yourself a chance to be a factor in the final of the event.

Q. You’ve been around 22 years now; who do you think is the face of the future of the series?

ED CARPENTER: I mean, I think it’s hard to pick one. I think there’s a ton of amazing young talent. I think you look across the majority of the teams, and there’s a bright future. The competition in the series is so high across teams and drivers.

But obviously I think Pato and Alex Palou are probably highest on the list. The Josefs of the world are pretty established now, but he’s going to be around for a long time to go, so I think the future is in great hands.

Q. Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t just have one face?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, I think that’s always a great thing.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, available in 79 countries with more than 3.2 million cars and trucks sold in 2020. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS MEDIA AVAILABILITY TRANSCRIPT
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
January 10, 2024

ALEXANDER ROSSI, No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet:

THE MODERATOR: Joined now by the driver of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, entering his ninth season in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, seven career NTT P1 awards, eight career wins, and adds a wedding ring in the off-season to his Indy 500 ring from a few years ago. Welcome to Content Day. How is it going so far?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: It’s going. It’s going. My suit fits, so that’s win No. 1. It’s way better than last year. We’re getting there.

THE MODERATOR: 2024, looking forward to it?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Yes, I am. These off-seasons are tough just because it’s a long time from when we raced last. But we’re now in 2024, so that’s a step in the right direction. Yeah, St. Pete is around the corner at this point.

Q. Just give us your thoughts; obviously you’ve got a new teammate, the team has some momentum coming off 2023. What are the expectations for 2024?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Expectations are high. I think that we kind of had the new team, new car added dynamic last year. That whole thing is behind us.

I think the team has grown and gelled really well together over the whole season last year, and to have another off-season of continuing to work together and get better is a positive.

I think that we were competitive last year, especially the 5 car was really strong in all events, and so I think that taking that positivity and just expanding on it and building on it should set us up really well for what should be a fantastic year.

Q. Obviously with the arrival of David Malukas to the team, what do you think he brings to the organization?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: First of all, we welcome him with arms wide open. It’s pretty cool to have him on the team. He’s very exuberant. He matches Pato’s personality pretty well in terms of his youthful excitement.

We haven’t — despite there being — we’ve had some hybrid testing and stuff. We haven’t, because it’s one driver per day, we haven’t really worked together much, but we’ve done some content stuff together, and we’ve been in the shop at the same time, and he’s a really lovely kid. I think he’s a great addition to the organization.

Obviously we’re getting to the point where we’re getting close to being together on track as a group. But at the moment it’s still getting to know each other from an off-track standpoint.

I think what he’s done so far in his career is pretty good, and he’s going to be ready to take a pretty big step here in 2024.

Q. In terms of ’24, we’re returning to Milwaukee this year. How excited are you about that?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: I mean, it’s always great to add events to the calendar, right, and obviously Milwaukee has a great history in the series. I’ve never been there, so I don’t really know. But yes, it’s cool to add a new track. It’s always great for a driver to go to a place you’ve never been before and kind of experience it for the first time.

Q. We talked about the schedule with a bunch of guys. As mentioned, Milwaukee, you’ve got an All-Star Race coming up. What are some races this season that you’re looking forward to the most, and what are some races that you think, we had something there last year, I can’t wait to get back there?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: I think obviously the 500 goes without saying. I think Thermal is going to be a really exciting event. It’s pretty cool that INDYCAR is doing like a prize money race and obviously having the Thermal Club members involved there and the format of the event and having it be kind of an elimination round to get to the final, a proper made-for-TV event is really exciting, so I’m looking forward to that and seeing how it all goes and winning a bunch of money; obviously that’s cool.

You mentioned Milwaukee.

Like I said, it’s great to add an event to the calendar. I haven’t really thought about that. I’m just thinking about St. Pete, honestly. That’s probably the other one, the first one of the race.

Q. Are you a one-race-at-a-time guy? How do you keep that focus week in and week out as you draw closer?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: It’s pretty easy, honestly. You have to take it one race at a time in a lot of ways just because it’s so — each race is so unique, and that’s what makes this championship so special is that every time you show up at a track like what you did the previous week doesn’t really necessarily translate.

Yes, you always have an eye to the 500. You’re always thinking about ideas and ways and the team is always developing the car in the off-season specifically for the 500 because it’s a whole different car.

Aside from that, it’s one event at a time, at least for me.

Q. As you’ve had a few months here to reflect on last year, finishing ninth in the championship and not where you want to be, what do you feel like boiled down to just not finishing where you guys wanted to be over the course of a 17-race season?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: It’s not one thing. I’ve been stuck in like a ninth purgatory for now four years. It’s really annoying. Yeah, I think we were pretty good on Sundays. We were really, really poor by a lot of standards on Saturday. We didn’t qualify well at all.

That’s been the sole focus this off-season is to figure out what we need to do different, what I need to do different in order to make sure that — to be competitive and to win these races, you have to start in the top 6. Yes, obviously there’s instances where you can win and not, but to be competitive in a championship you’ve got to start in the top 6, and I think our average qualifying was like 10th. That’s really the main reason in my mind why we ended up finishing ninth was just because we weren’t starting high enough forward on Sundays.

Q. Is there any type of track that you guys are still working on as a team? I know there’s always work to be done, but in years past before you joined the team, as McLaren was coming into the fold, Pato would typically tell us one type of track they felt really comfortable at and some things they were still working on, do you feel like that’s coming together and you guys have struck a solid balance there?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: That’s hard to say. Obviously I don’t really — it’s hard for me to judge last year and how they were relative to how they should have been or how we should have been. I think superspeedways we were very strong. We expected to be strong. I think the short ovals we expected to be stronger than we were, so that was kind of the disappointment, I think, was our performances at Iowa and Gateway.

I think a big focus for the team in terms of just making a step is certainly on the street course performance. Not that it was bad, but there’s certainly teams that had a pace advantage on us that we need to close the gap to.

But it’s an ever-moving target every single year. Even if we were good at superspeedways last year, you’ve got to take a step to still be good this year. It’s all of them really.

But yeah, I would say that street courses and the short ovals are probably the biggest areas where we felt we were missing last year.

Q. As we’ve gone through this long off-season, I know the series has seen some setbacks between the continued delay of the hybrid and some things fans have grown frustrated with. As you have potentially met with some series executives or talked to folks this off-season about where the series is going, from a long-term perspective, what would you tell fans about the direction of where things are going and what are you confident about?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: It’s a good question. I actually had dinner with — me and some other drivers had dinner with Penske Corp last night and were able to ask questions and get answers to questions.

I think the big message is everything that the fans are saying, like none of that is news to any of us or any of the people that are in charge of the series or the future of the series.

But obviously they are not going to give you a play-by-play and a step-by-step as to how they are tackling challenges and preparing for the future and doing things.

You’ve got to trust the process. We all do. But ultimately the people that are running the ship and in charge of the direction are the right people to be doing that.

I think there’s a lot of positive news that’s going to be coming over the next three to five months that people are going to be very excited about. There was obviously great news yesterday with INDYCAR returning to iRacing, which is fantastic.

I think there’s been some negativity towards the end of the year in 2023. There’s going to be quite a few positive announcements that are coming to start the year in 2024. That’s the way life works. It goes up and down.

Ultimately there’s going to be an evolution and progression of the car this year with the hybrid coming on board, and the fact that that’s delayed, if people have a problem with that, then that’s fine. But ultimately there’s a really good direction that the series is heading, and I think people are going to be excited about it.

Q. You’re pretty much a student of racing and you showed your versatility by driving in everything, including the Baja 1000 and some sports car races. Have you found yourself paying a little more attention to Kyle Larson and some of his efforts, especially toward the end of the NASCAR championship last year since he is going to be your teammate here at Indy this year?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: No, but — no, I don’t think so. In terms of watching races, no. But in terms of — I was with him in Charlotte when he was on the sim. He was at the track — I forget what test it was, but he was at the track — oh, it was the hybrid test.

I was driving when he was doing his ROP, so spent some time with him there. He’s going to be a fantastic addition. He’s going to be up to speed right away. He’s going to be a challenger to win the thing. I don’t need to watch him race to know that.

Q. But you as a fellow racer, do you sometimes — how impressed are you about his versatility? He’s at the Chili Bowl this weekend —

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Oh, he’s phenomenal. I’ve said for a long time, he’s one of the best in the world. That doesn’t come easily in what he’s accomplished in his career. It’s pretty much second to none.

Q. There’s a lot of former drivers that are up and down pit lane working in various capacities. You have one of them with Tony Kanaan. What’s it going to be like having him as a little bit of an advisor this year for the entire team?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Yeah, I think he’s more than an advisor. That was kind of his role last year, and he was so good at advising that he got promoted. He’s a very integral part of Arrow McLaren and the management group. He brings a lot of information in terms of — he’s seen teams operate at their best, he’s seen teams operate really at their worst. He knows kind of signs of good and bad, and he’s able to help give guidance from that experience to all of us, whether that’s us as drivers, whether that’s to engineers, mechanics, to Gavin, to Brian, relaying stuff back to Zach. He’s a really key part of the organization.

He also brings a huge amount of enthusiasm to the team.

With him, Pato and David, it takes a lot of load off of me from that standpoint.

Q. Obviously looking at your first season, it was a decent season, but now you’ve got that first season at Arrow McLaren under your belt. Do you think winning races is achievable or matching Pato’s form is achievable for you?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Oh, yeah, for sure. It’s hard to win races in this series, but yeah, it’s 100 percent achievable. You just have to — when you have the opportunity and you have the car to do it, you’ve got to get it done. That’s really what it comes down to. You’re not going to be the best car every single weekend, but the weekends that you are the best, you need to figure out a way to finish it off.

That’s kind of been a big team focus this off-season, as I already mentioned for me specifically on the 7 car. We’ve got to make a step in qualifying.

But assuming that that all goes according to plan, then yes, I think we’ll definitely be much improved on how 2023 was.

Q. Following up on Nathan’s question in kind of a two-part way, how did that dinner that you had last night change your perspective on the bigger picture stuff and put you in a different frame of mind? They say it’s about trusting the process and they know what fans are saying, but how do you convey that message when obviously not all of the fans will be in those high-level meetings and be able to hear what you guys hear that assuages your concerns?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Yeah, it’s a good question. I don’t know that I necessarily have the answer to it. But let’s use an example of Apple. Like their stock prices have plummeted in the past couple of months. Are consumers, people that are not on the board who are investing in the company expecting executives to give them an explanation as to how they’re going to rectify it and what their solution is going forward and why X, Y and Z happened?

No. Because INDYCAR prides itself on being so fan centric, I think obviously there’s a lot of good that comes from that, but then there’s also, for lack of a better word, a small amount of entitlement that comes from that and expecting that just because we’re such an open book with everything that we do, that doesn’t mean that there’s things that go on behind the scenes that need to be kind of worked on and improved and kept under wraps until it’s ready to be kind of laid out for the world.

That’s the way most businesses and organizations work, so I don’t think that should be a surprise for people, that when a bad news situation comes out, there’s not an immediate rectification response as to what the solution is because maybe that solution hasn’t been created yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not being worked on in the background.

I think that the people that are in charge, the people at Penske Corp, the people at IMS, the people at INDYCAR, they all have the same love and passion for the sport that we do, and so they’re not going to allow things to just fall by the wayside. They may have a different approach and way of problem solving and going about addressing issues, but it’s still with the goal in mind of growing the series, keeping the Indy 500 as the greatest single day sporting event in the world, and making sure that the on-track product we have is better than anything else, and I don’t think that there’s anything historically, especially over the past nine years that I’ve been involved in this series, that should have anyone be casting doubt on that because from year to year, it has grown, it has improved.

As I said, in the next couple months, I think there’s going to be some things that come out that people are really excited about.

About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, available in 79 countries with more than 3.2 million cars and trucks sold in 2020. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS MEDIA AVAILABILITY TRANSCRIPT
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
January 10, 2024

JOSEF NEWGARDEN, driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet:
THE MODERATOR: Welcome to the start of Content Days for the NTT INDYCAR Series looking ahead to the 2024 season which will be here before you know it. Leading off with the current and reigning Indianapolis 500 champion, Josef Newgarden. We’re with the driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet, beginning his 13th season in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, 29 career wins and counting.

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Good morning. Feeling really good. Excited to be here. Excited to get going again. We’re always busy. It’s funny, people always ask us what we’re doing after the season finale. They just assume we’re sitting around waiting until March, but on the team side we’ve been very busy and personally it’s been very busy. I’m ready for the full thing. I can’t wait to get to St. Pete and really get into the flow. Should be exciting.

Q. I know last night you had a chance to spend time with some executives. What are some of the things they talked about with the drivers and people for 2024? What are some of the things that you feel positive about, maybe some areas that you see that need some work?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Genuinely I feel really positive about a lot of things. It’s been probably a tougher off-season for cadence and news, but I really think 2024 can be another great step for us in the INDYCAR Series.

We have so many positive things going on, so I’m kind of excited about the season finally getting here and getting into the swing of it. It helps when we get back to the track because we just have a great racing product, too.

I think it’s easy to forget about it sometimes when we leave the track, but when we’re in racing, it’s easy to talk about our competition level, and I think that the level of racing that we have in this series.
It was a good check-in last night. I think the Penske Entertainment folks are trying to do a good job of staying engaged with everybody in the series so that we’re understanding where they’re going and where the plan is.

But there is a lot of good things on the horizon. Nothing that I’m going to get into specifically. Obviously the hybrid is probably the most exciting component of this year, so we’re all still in full prep for that, trying to understand exactly how we’re going to tackle that post-Indianapolis. I think that’s probably the No. 1 topic right now.

Q. How taxing have these last four years been since your last championship? We’ve talked on and off about winning, being so close, you have three years in a row of being runner-up in the championship. I know you’re someone who cares about this as much as anyone and puts as much work into all of this in the off-season, in season to accomplish what you’ve done in the last decade. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of feeling like you needed to pare stuff down and recenter and refocus yourself going into 2024?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yeah, I think what I’m talking about is really just life. I think we all go through it at different stages. I’m at a different stage now in my career than when I was a rookie in 2012. I’m fortunate enough to be at this stage in my career. I’m most thankful to just have had all this time in INDYCAR. It’s going to be my 13th year.

I feel very different than 13 years ago when I first started, and I’m trying to understand what’s probably best for me at this stage in my career, and I think getting back to some simplicity would be good for me.

It happens in life where everything can become complicated, regardless of what business you’re in or what facet of life, if you want to start a family. Everybody in this room, we all can become too busy or too clouded maybe with ambitions, and I think for me, that was probably true in some respects.

So I’m trying to just find clarity on what is most important to me objective-wise, so I’ve gone through that process a little bit.

This sounds probably more grand than it is. It’s simple things I would say have been taking place to try and implement some simplicity. But I’m excited. I think it’ll bring me back to the core of what I do, and just happy to be here.

I want to go racing again and do a great job. Those three years finishing runner-up in the championship were tough. Those were very crushing. I would like to change the cycle on that for the future.

Q. Looking at the schedule this year, thought about you immediately. Two new races at Milwaukee. Obviously you’re the oval master. Then St. Louis under the lights this year. Talk about the oval side of the schedule coming up this season, which is obviously a strong point.
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yeah, always excited for new challenges. Milwaukee was great when we had it on the schedule. I’m excited to go back there. It’ll be interesting to see how different it is.

What’s it been, nearly eight, nine years since we’ve been there? So it should be different in some respects. The car is going to be different.

I think Gateway under the lights for me is just a joy. Everybody is going to be happy about that. Should be a phenomenal race. The aero package is going to be different, so that’s going to change the whole sort of look and feel of that.

I like it. I like change. There’s a lot of exciting things that are going to be happening throughout the year. Some of these tracks and events are going to be different. When the hybrid comes online middle of the year, that’s going to add a whole new dynamic, which I personally think is exciting.

When you show up to go racing, you know that certain things are going to be put in front of you challenge-wise. I think that’s going to be a challenge for everybody. I think for us, we’ve got to figure out how to maximize the beginning of the season, and then when there’s a change, how are we going to maximize the rest of it. That’s going to be pretty cool.

Yeah, the ovals will be no doubt a highlight probably, but I want to be good everywhere. I think that’s probably the most important thing I would say is we’ve got to be strong everywhere if we want to win the championship.

Q. I know you’re as competitive as they come. You’re now a two-time champion, Indy 500 champion, Long Beach winner. What drives Josef Newgarden now? What’s the next goal you’re trying to eclipse? When you get out of bed in the morning, what keeps that drive going for you?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: You know, when it comes to racing, it’s still — for me, it’s still the bottom line numbers. What’s the ultimate results. I care about that stuff.
I think everybody that’s in here does.

I don’t know how you can be in racing and not care about just finding success every weekend you’re at the track. That’s why I show up. I know it’s why our team shows up.
You talk to Roger Penske, he’s more motivated than anybody to win the 20th Indy 500. That’s an unbelievable statement when you really think about it.

I’m the same way. I’m so thankful we were able to win an Indy 500 last year, but I’m thinking about the next one. How do we get a second one, and if we’re lucky enough to get a second one, how do we get a third, and if we can get a third, how do we get a fourth. It’s a never-ending process of trying to stack success on to one another. That’s what motivates me.

The tough part about it, and I think the easy way to stay motivated, is it’s always changing. Just because we were successful one year and we figured out a formula to win the 500 last year, that does not guarantee the same formula next season, and we see that time and time again. There’s always a different challenge in front of us, and we’re going to have to find a new way and a new path, so that also motivates me. I enjoy the new challenge that we’re always coming up against.

This year is still a little bit of an unknown. We’ll see what happens.

Q. Since you’ve been with Team Penske, obviously you guys didn’t win the INDYCAR Championship last year, but you won the 500, Will won the championship the year before, and you look at the NASCAR side, Joey and Ryan the last two years won the championship. Is the morale around Team Penske and the culture in general as good as it’s ever been since you’ve been there?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Oh, no doubt. I don’t know what it was like pre-my time, but I think the collaboration has never been greater in our team across the board. We’re really trying to leverage every person, every position that we have across motorsports to elevate the whole thing.

It was really great to see Ryan seal the championship this year. I think that is going to be a big catalyst for him as an individual, but it’s also a continuing catalyst for our team.
That’s a big deal. They went back-to-back in the NASCAR championship, which is not easy to do.

On our side, we won the Indianapolis 500, which had been a thorn for the last three, four years. You think about that, too, we go — at Team Penske we go three or four years without finding Victory Lane, and that’s deemed unacceptable.

There’s just a standard that we definitely live by, and you’ve got to love it. You’ve got to love living by that standard if you’re here, and I think pretty much everybody does.
But yeah, the morale and the excitement — I’ve never seen it better. I don’t think it was ever bad, but I’ve definitely never seen it better.

Q. Tough question for you to answer, but we’re at the start of a season, and it’s a reflective time in some respects, too. You’ve stacked wins here incredibly over the last seven years, and you’re kind of at the cusp of top 10 in all time — right ahead of you now, two wins more is Helio, Dario, PT. You’re starting to get in pretty tough air. Do you ever take a moment and say, how has this happened so quickly, and wow? Do you ever have those kind of moments?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Probably more so than ever last year. The 500 I think takes you back. It really does. For me personally, it was just a moment of reflection when you’re able to — I could get emotional thinking about that race. How could you not? It’s just this peak that seems impossible, especially when you’ve been living and breathing it for 12 years and it not happening.

That has set me back more than anything in my career.

As far as the rest of it, I don’t think people like my answer, but it’s just not good enough. Roger always says, and I love when he says this, he says, good enough is not good enough, and that’s kind of how I feel about our results. We need to do a little bit better.

Q. They changed his parking spot at Indy to 19 almost immediately after the checkered flag, that he’s now got to get 20. Is that what you’re talking about? It’s just like it’s what’s next is next?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: 20 is on the board. That’s what we’re looking at right now. When you go to the shop and we talk about it, we’re thinking about Indianapolis first, and it’s everything else right behind it, absolutely.

Q. What do you need to work on as a driver to be better in ’24 than you were in ’23?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yeah, great question. Yeah, everything. I don’t think it’ll come down to one or two ingredients. We know where we fell short probably as a group. Me personally, I think I was also layered into some of that. The weaknesses on the road and street courses, there’s always things that you can be doing better, and certainly for me qualifying is probably going to be the No. 1 thing on my board that needs to improve.

I think it goes deeper than just at the track, though. It’s where are you at from a preparation standpoint. I’m really looking at that a lot this off-season and what I’m going to be bringing into each weekend that we go to.

So just my own personal process even before I show up and start working with the team, I think those are all areas I can be better at.

And I guess just to round it back up, it’s not going to be one thing. It’s always a combination of a lot of little things that you’ve just got to improve and be a bit better than last year. I’m looking at everything. The personal side is big, and I think as a team, too, we’re working really hard to just be better in all areas that we weren’t last year.

Q. I wanted to ask about the Million Dollar Challenge. What do you make of it? The timing of it is kind of puzzling because it’s not an exhibition preseason thing. What do you make of that?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yeah, the event at Thermal, correct? I’ve got to say I’m kind of excited about it. We were talking about it last night, too. This is one of the things we were chatting about.

You see this across the board in motorsports, whether it’s the event at the Coliseum that NASCAR put on or it’s these other trials. I think for us, it’ll be a great exhibition race. In a lot of ways it’s made for TV, which is in a lot of ways great.

I think not everybody lives in Palm Springs, California, but this is one of these events that can be just a net positive. Let’s run it; let’s see how it goes. There’s no guarantee it’ll be perfect or well-received, but there’s also a possibility that it’s super well-received.

I think it’s an exciting event. Obviously, there’s a lot of money to be won, which is motivating for everybody.

But I think more than anything, there’s just the motivation that you want to be top of the pack. Even some speed at Thermal matters everywhere else, so I think for us it’s going to be important to be fast there, and let’s see how it goes. I think it’ll be a fun challenge, really fun challenge for everybody, and we’ll see how it’s received.

Q. Do you worry about how hard people are going to be racing that early in the season? You don’t want to tear up equipment at a non-points race.
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: No, not at all, as far as my concern for it.

You have to understand, every event you show up to, you have to be putting in the maximum effort without going over the limit. That is our challenge every single time.
What are we going to do when we go to Indianapolis in April to test? You’re going to be putting the car to the limit, and of course you don’t want to wreck the car, but that’s always the challenge we have. I think that’s a little bit irrelevant. At Thermal you can push the car to the limit. It is our job to do that and try and find performance and win a race.

Accidents happen, too; if we get into an accident, we’ll work with it going into the next race. That’s not abnormal to what we do.

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