MONTEREY, Calif. – The culmination of the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series championship included the tale of two fathers, each there every step of the way to support their sons in their quest for IndyCar glory.
It’s a tale of Joey Newgarden, the father of Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden who became a two-time IndyCar champion with an eighth-place finish in Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey. The other is Pieter Rossi, the father of Alexander Rossi who also serves as his son’s agent.
These were the two drivers that had most of the focus and attention entering Sunday’s IndyCar season-finale at WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca. Newgarden had a 41-point lead over Rossi and a 42-point lead over Team Penske teammate and 2016 IndyCar Series champion Simon Pagenaud.
By the time Sunday’s 90-lap race was completed, it was another father, Bryan Herta, who got to celebrate a victory as his 19-year-old son Colton scored his second career NTT IndyCar Series win. Joey Newgarden got to celebrate his son’s second championship.
“It feels really good,” Joey told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “He did what he had to do. That is what it was all about this year. It was a tough deal today, but we came out here and did what we had to do, and it wasn’t in other people’s hands and they did what they could do, and it wasn’t enough to beat him.
“It wasn’t enough to overcome what he did in Texas, Iowa, St. Pete or a lot of other places. He walked them at a lot of places this year and just couldn’t quite do any more than he had here today.”
One of those “walks” was at Mid-Ohio at the end of July in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. Newgarden was set to finish fourth, but on the final lap, he saw an opportunity to pass Ryan Hunter-Reay for third place entering the “Keyhole” section of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
It was a move that left Newgarden’s car stranded in the gravel trap. A fourth-place finish turned into a 14th.
“That was a lesson that was well learned and will pay dividends later on for him,” Newgarden’s father said.
That left Pieter Rossi to console his son’s effort that fell short of this year’s IndyCar Series championship. Rossi also lost second in the standings as Pagenaud’s fourth-place finish gave team owner Roger Penske a 1-2 finish in the series.
“He had a good shot at it and it just wasn’t our day,” Pieter Rossi told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “It’s hard to get around here. It ended up being a lot of single-file and you had to use strategy and yellows and beat some guys out of the pits on tires and get some good first few laps in on the tires.
“We had a rough end to the season. That was it. We weren’t very consistent after Toronto. But hey, that’s the way it is.
“Next year is looking up.”