"I know we have what it takes": Josef Newgarden sends confident message on championship battle ahead of upcoming IndyCar season

IndyCar driver Josef Newgarden was featured in a video uploaded by NTT IndyCar’s official account on social media platform X on February 25, 2025, as the Team Penske driver spoke about the upcoming season. With the first race at St. Pete on the horizon, Newgarden shared a confident message of a title challenge for the 2025 IndyCar championship.

Newgarden reflected on the 2024 IndyCar season in the said video and detailed how the team had a great car with great pace and scored multiple good results. It was a few bad results that let the team down and prevented them from winning the championship.

Looking ahead at the 2025 season, Newgarden suggested that he and the team are in a good spot to challenge for the title as he said:

“I know we have what it takes and so trying to not over complicate or overthink things, over correct. We don't want to be doing that going into 25. I think we have the team in place to get the job done, certainly should have, you know, the ingredients to compete at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but more importantly, to compete there and then to transition it into hopefully a good championship run.”

“So, you know, I feel like we're in a good spot. I'm excited for the year and we just need to capitalize a little bit better at consistency that we weren't able to do in 24.”

Josef Newgarden won the 2024 Indy 500 and became a back-to-back winner at the prestigious race. The Team Penske driver also won the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 and scored podiums on four different occasions. However, he still finished eighth in the championship.

Newgarden ended up outside the Top 10 on nine occasions, which included the DNFs at the two races in Milwaukee and the disqualification at St. Pete for the push to pass controversy.

---

Team Penske boss urges Josef Newgarden to “focus on the championship”

Josef Newgarden won the IndyCar championship in 2017 and 2019, followed by finishing as the runner-up in the championship for three consecutive years from 2020-2022. However, in the last couple of years, the 34-year-old has finished fifth and eighth in the championship.

Going into the 2025 season, Team Penske's President Tim Cindric urged Newgarden to adopt the championship mentality as he said (via Indystar):

“[Josef Newgarden] needs to focus on the championship mentality if that’s the overall goal. Early in his career, he understood all that. He’s a guy who’s tenacious, and it’s hard to hold him back, and he has to want to put his mind in a championship mentality, and when he does that, we’ll be in a good place this year.”

Josef will also be looking to accomplish a three-peat at the Indy 500 and become the first-ever driver to do so.