Conor Daly shares a message of respect to Josef Newgarden after Team Penske driver's IndyCar nightmare ends in Nashville

Team Penske star Josef Newgarden won the IndyCar race at Nashville Superspeedway and ended his winless streak since the start of the season. Conor Daly came out with a heartwarming message for the 32-year-old Penske driver as he shared a story about Newgarden's dedication and commitment.

Josef Newgarden won multiple IndyCar races in 2024, and the same was expected from him coming into the 2025 season. However, it was anything but smooth sailing for the #2 Chevrolet, which had a series of bad luck, mechanical issues, and unforced errors, which led to DNFs and poor results.

Coming in the IndyCar race at Nashville, Newgarden's home race, the Team Penske driver qualified P6 and ran in the Top for the entirety of the race. After David Malukas’ crash on Lap 83 and the caution that followed, Josef Newgarden started moving up the grid towards the race leaders.

Pato O'Ward's crash and Will Power's unfortunate incident in the pit lane gave Newgarden the effective lead, which he lost at the final pit stop to his teammate Scott McLaughlin. As the Kiwi driver made a late mistake, the Nashville-born once again took the lead and won the race.

Conor Daly came out and shared a message for Newgarden after the Team Penske driver's first win of the season, as he said,

“If we were on the black tire at the end, it becomes a different game. Obviously, Josef is so good in these places. He wanted to win so bad. I was staying at his house a couple of days ago, and all he could think about was winning. So I respect it.”

Conor Daly had a loose car in qualifying and started from the back. However, Daly, who's known as somewhat of an oval specialist, carved his way through the field and finished the race in P5

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Three possible IndyCar oval wins that were snatched away from Josef Newgarden during the 2025 season due to no error of his own

Josef Newgarden looked speedy during the Indy 500 week and qualified for the Top 12 when the attenuator scandal came out, and he was sent to the back of the grid. Regardless, the Team Penske driver made his way through the field and was running with the Top 5, threatening the leaders when a mechanical issue forced him to retire from the race.

The next incident happened at Gateway, where Newgarden was comfortably in the lead of the race when the lapped car of Louis Foster hit the barrier. The Team Penske driver was running behind Foster and got taken out by the stricken RLL.

Josef Newgarden took the lead of the Iowa Races 2 with 35 laps to go and then made his final pitstop. However, Colton Herta crashed a couple of laps later, and Newgarden was trapped a lap down.