{"id":310942,"date":"2023-06-22T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=310942"},"modified":"2023-06-22T05:58:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T05:58:38","slug":"its-pretty-wide-open-contender-scoffs-at-rivals-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=310942","title":{"rendered":"'It's pretty wide open': Contender scoffs at rival's lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josef Newgarden<\/a> isn't conceding defeat in the IndyCar<\/a> title race just yet, despite Alex Palou's incredible purple patch.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard has won three of the last four races, extending his lead out to more than an entire race win's worth of points.<\/p>\n

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver leads on 324 points, while teammate Marcus Ericsson sits second on 250 points.<\/p>\n

Stan Sport is the only place to watch the 2023 IndyCar Series, featuring Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon.<\/strong><\/em> All the action streaming ad free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Newgarden, who won this year's Indianapolis 500<\/a>, lies third on 243 points and 81 points in arrears.<\/p>\n

\"Josef<\/p>\n

Palou has already equalled his championship-winning effort of 2021 in which he won three races.<\/p>\n

\ufeffTo the same point of that campaign, he had only won once from eight races.<\/p>\n

Asked what it would take to beat Palou, Newgarden replied, "Probably win by 200 points if you won nine races straight.\u00a0Yeah, I mean, it's pretty wide open still.<\/p>\n

"It's kind of out of our control. They've had a good run up to this point, right? They've not had a bad race. I think that's to be expected.<\/p>\n

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"We had an engine pop on us in the very first round. Everybody has a different story. If you look at their story, they've not had one bad race yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"When you have eight races in a row without a bad one, this is what happens points-wise.<\/p>\n

"What's going to happen on the final nine, it's impossible to say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"There's so much season still that he's got a good cushion at this point, they've done a great job, but I don't think that guarantees anything in IndyCar."<\/p>\n

\"Josef<\/p>\n

Newgarden wound up second in the most recent race of the series at Road America, just behind Palou.<\/p>\n

The Team Penske driver has enjoyed a rich vein of form but has been pegged back by an engine failure at St Petersburg and a poor outing in Alabama.<\/p>\n

Outside those two results, Newgarden hasn't finished outside the top 10 this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Newgarden was frustrated not to get his third win of the season.<\/p>\n

"It was a pretty good day, yeah, it was an okay day," he said.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/IndyCar\/status\/1670802462951759872<\/a><\/p>\n

"Disappointing for the way it finished for us just because there was a great opportunity in the middle to win this race.<\/p>\n

"I think at the end Alex had the field covered. He was very good on that final stint. I don't think we were going to make anything happen there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"In the middle there was a great opportunity, we just didn't capitalise on it. Got pretty dicey with the restarts.<\/p>\n

"I'm conflicted because on the one hand it was a great recovery for all of us on Team Penske. We started this weekend in pretty bad shape, were really far off the pace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/IndyCar\/status\/1670536654774321153<\/a><\/p>\n

"We chipped away at it, did a lot of work, felt like we got really close in qualifying, had a really good race car.<\/p>\n

"From that standpoint I'm elated, but just disappointed. Looked like we had an opportunity today and we weren't really able to seal the deal. It was a great job for our team."<\/p>\n

The IndyCar Series returns on July 2-3 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, an event that Dixon has won six times previously making him the most successful active driver there.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Josef Newgarden isn't conceding defeat in the IndyCar title race just yet, despite Alex Palou's incredible purple patch. The Spaniard has won three of the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":310944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310942"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310947,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310942\/revisions\/310947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/310944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=310942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=310942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}