{"id":521676,"date":"2026-03-08T02:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T02:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/521676\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T02:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T02:45:10","slug":"after-indycar-win-josef-newgarden-puts-pressure-on-penske-nascar-drivers-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/521676\/","title":{"rendered":"After INDYCAR Win, Josef Newgarden Puts Pressure on Penske NASCAR Drivers to Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Raceway (Avondale, Ariz.) \u2014 Josef Newgarden<\/a> now has his first win of the 2026 INDYCAR season<\/a>. He’s also got jokes.<\/p>\n

After taking the checkered flag Saturday, Newgarden jokingly put some pressure on his Team Penske counterparts in the NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> to deliver in their race Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1<\/a>) as part of the Desert Double.<\/p>\n

“It will be so disappointing if the Cup guys do not deliver tomorrow,” Newgarden said with a laugh during his post-race press conference following his Good Ranchers 250 victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Horribly disappointing,” Team Penske president Jonathan Diuguid added.<\/p>\n

So far through the doubleheader weekend, it’s been all about Team Penske.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Saturday’s INDYCAR race, David Malukas<\/a> in the No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet won the pole, followed by Newgarden’s 33rd career win and second straight at the one-mile desert track, dating back to the series’ last race here in 2018. Malukas finished third.<\/p>\n

On the NASCAR Cup Series side, Joey Logano,<\/a> behind the wheel of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, won the pole for Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500.<\/p>\n

While not all INDYCAR drivers agree<\/a>, Newgarden praised the INDYCAR-NASCAR crossover weekend, especially because it’s the first time both series raced on the same oval on the same weekend.<\/p>\n

“It’s always fun,” he continued. “We got to go first. It worked out. Now you got to put the pressure on them. Look, it was very hard. I didn’t think we were going to win today, to be honest with you. It’s fun. I wish we had more weekends like this, to be honest with you. It’s fun going on an oval together.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Race winner Josef Newgarden on the podium with Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas after the INDYCAR Good Ranchers 250 at Phoenix Raceway on March 07, 2026. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n

[DESERT DOUBLE: What to Know as INDYCAR, NASCAR Share the Track<\/a>]<\/p>\n

And he doesn’t want it to end in Phoenix this weekend.<\/p>\n

“I think we could get a couple more like this,” Newgarden said.<\/p>\n

“I hope there [were] a lot of people that have maybe not seen an INDYCAR race in a while that are going to leave here and go, \u2018Hey, I should give that another look.\u2019<\/p>\n

“Both should complement each other. If you’re a motorsports fan, you’re just getting way more value for your weekend to have the top-2 motorsports championships together on the same weekend. I don’t see why we can’t do a little more of this. I think it’s good for everybody.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoenix Raceway (Avondale, Ariz.) \u2014 Josef Newgarden now has his first win of the 2026 INDYCAR season. He’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,205678,204574,5793,204573,634,8354,102771,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-521676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cup-straight-talk-wireless-500-03-08-2026","11":"tag-david-malukas","12":"tag-joey-logano","13":"tag-josef-newgarden","14":"tag-nascar","15":"tag-nascar-cup-series","16":"tag-ntt-indycar-series","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}