During Saturday’s IndyCar race from Iowa Speedway, Josef Newgarden solidified his oval track dominance by winning his fourth such race in a row.
He passed many other drivers on the way to that victory, lapping all but the top five positions in the nearly caution-free event.
After the race was over, Newgarden was quick to voice his displeasure for how the lapped cars were driving. He felt most drivers were racing him way harder than necessary considering they were a lap or more behind his pace.
“It’s one thing if you’re leading the race,” said Newgarden. “If you’re leading the race, you’re really within your right. If you’re fighting with people around you, seventh, eighth, ninth place, you’re all fighting. You’re within your right to fight as hard as possible.
“I think, the way the rule was written, it’s also legal for them to fight to the death to stay on the lead lap in front of the leader. It is legal. I’m just telling you you’re not making any friends when you do it.
“There’s 20 laps to go in the race, and I was getting driven like it was literally to the death for the end of the Indy 500. It was just crazy. I couldn’t believe the way people were mirror driving. I’ve never seen it that bad here.
“You don’t have to pull over, but just don’t be aggressive and weave in front of the leader, block the leader, chop the leader. Like there’s just a point where you’ve got to understand that that comes back around.
“If you do that to someone, I’m going to fence you the next time I see you. If you’re the leader the next time, I am going to do you so dirty if you did that to me.
“It’s common sense. Everybody in the paddock knows it, and they’re just — for whatever reason, there’s just people who just can’t get it. You know what, if they can’t learn it by now, they’ll probably never learn.
“I’ll go talk to some people [tonight]. They need to know. Look, it’s not cool. It’s not cool. If you want to play that game, that’s fine, but you should be thinking long term.”
Drivers competing in IndyCar have often complained about the way other drivers fight to stay ahead of the leaders, partially due to the rules not forcing them to yield the position.
But the complaints have been extra strong in the last few rounds, with the aggressive driving prompting louder than usual reactions from the series’ top drivers.
Unless race control deems the actions to have crossed a line, however, there is little incentive for racing tactics to change outside of the ‘what goes around, comes around’ mentality that Newgarden hinted at.
Tempers may flare on Sunday, with little time to cool down between races in the middle of the demanding double-header weekend.
