For the final six laps of Sunday’s PPG 375 at Texas Motor Speedway, Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward raced side-by-side, inches apart of each other’s cars battling for the lead.
The pair of Chevrolets were the class of the field during the day, and although a yellow flag flew a lap and a half before the finish to give Newgarden the victory, they battled right to the end.
“Pato gave me all the respect in the world when he was racing next to me,” Newgarden said on the NBC broadcast.
“That’s how it should be,” O’Ward said, when asked about Newgarden’s words. “It shouldn’t be any other way.”
The respect in the series goes deep throughout the garage, and it’s something some have viewed as a negative in recent memory, citing a lack of rivalries or drama.
On Sunday, it delivered one of the best races motorsports-wide in the same time frame.
THIS IS INDYCAR! pic.twitter.com/ZF6wcnsO74
— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthewCFB) April 2, 2023
“It was just hard, it was really hard to fight those guys,” Newgarden said. “I think Palou was strong too, there’s just no gimmies… After St. Pete I was kind of re-thinking everything, like can we do this again?”
And then they did.
In the final 100 laps, Pato O’Ward had established his speed over the rest of the field, growing his lead over Newgarden to nearly six seconds while lapping up to the third-place driver in the race.
“I needed something to catch back up,” Newgarden said. “That stint where he got by me and ripped a gap – that was my worse stint. I think we went the wrong way with my adjustments and that’s my fault, I was asking for it and then I wanted to reverse it. When we needed the car at the end, it was absolutely there.”
Playing into Newgarden’s fortune, the yellow flag flew and the No. 2 came down pit road along with O’Ward.
While the cars were allowed to take a wave around – and still only six benefited to the point of getting back onto the lead lap – Newgarden took two pit stops to make sure he wouldn’t need to save on fuel throughout the race.
In the end, the advantage from that call may have only lasted 20 laps, but it was enough to kick the momentum back towards the Team Penske driver.
“I was a little bit worried that if we didn’t get help to catch back up, he might run away with it,” Newgarden said. “But they gave us another chance. We took it.”
The NTT IndyCar Series will return to the track on April 16 for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach following an off week. The race is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. CT and will be shown live on NBC.
NTT IndyCar Series results
PPG 375
Texas Motor Speedway
Sun. April 2, 2023
1. Josef Newgarden
2. Pato O’Ward
3. Alex Palou
4. David Malukas
5. Scott Dixon
6. Scott McLaughlin
7. Colton Herta
8. Marcus Ericsson
9. Callum Ilott
10. Helio Castroneves
11. Rinus VeeKay
12. Agustin Canapino
13. Ed Carpenter
14. Romain Grosjean
15. Benjamin Pedersen
16. Will Power
17. Simon Pagenaud
18. Jack Harvey
19. Christian Lundgaard
20. Conor Daly
21. Santino Ferrucci
22. Alexander Rossi
23. Devlin DeFrancesco
24. Graham Rahal
25. Sting Ray Robb
26. Kyle Kirkwood
27. Takuma Sato
