Why Josef Newgarden Is So Dominant On INDYCAR Ovals, Like Nashville Superspeedway

In Driver’s Eye with James Hinchcliffe, the six-time INDYCAR winner will bring you inside the mind of a racer while breaking down the nuts and bolts of the sport for fans. After back-to-back road course races, INDYCAR switches gears again this weekend in Nashville, heading to the tricky concrete superspeedway oval just outside the Music City. McLaren dominated the last stretch of road-course races with Christian Lungaard and Pato O’Ward taking a win apiece. But heading back to an oval means all eyes are on one man this weekend: Josef Newgarden. The Team Penske front man has put up an absolute masterclass on ovals since very early in his career. Lately, however, it’s been on another level. Newgarden’s last 11 INDYCAR wins have been on ovals, including his two victories so far this season at Phoenix Raceway and Gateway (a.k.a. World Wide Technology Raceway). His last non-oval victory was at Road America back in 2022 — of course, not counting St. Petersburg 2024 when he was DQ’d after crossing the finish line first on track. In the span of those 11 oval wins, there have been 27 oval races, meaning Newgarden has a win rate higher than 40% on this type of track. That is quite simply astounding in the most competitive era of the sport. His oval prowess was evident from his first days in the series. He had strong showings at the Indianapolis 500 from his rookie season, and he took his first of many wins at Iowa Speedway in the predecessor to the current ECR squad back in 2015. That checkered flag opened the floodgates for Newgarden on ovals. It is interesting — despite them being the same cars week in and week out — how different the skillsets can be for success racing on ovals vs. street courses vs. road courses. Oval racing requires such a unique feel and understanding of the car, what it wants and how to drive it. This was something Newgarden figured out quickly and to devastating effect. On an oval, the speeds are significantly higher, so the inputs are so much smaller. If you’re driving your road car at 10 miles an hour, a big swerve of the steering wheel doesn’t upset things too much. Do that same input at 70 miles an hour, and you’re barrel rolling into a ditch. That same concept applies in INDYCAR. At the speeds we see on ovals, you have to recalibrate your senses to feel the smallest and most subtle feedback markers the car is giving you. You crank up your sensitivity to the feedback from the car and pull way back on the severity of the inputs you respond with. It’s not easy and it’s not natural. It’s a talent that has to be refined. Josef has an uncanny ability to feel what his race car is telling him. Combine that with an astute understanding of what the car needs to be fast, and it makes him almost unstoppable. Another key to success on ovals is trusting the car. Josef is piloting a machine bolted together by some of the best in the business. He and his engineers work tirelessly on perfecting the setup. When he straps in on Sunday, he has limitless trust in the car’s and his team’s capabilities, which gives him the kind of confidence that makes you devastatingly quick. But speed isn’t the only key to oval racing. The race craft — where to put your race car and when, how to set up passes laps in advance, exploring the grip in different and non-conventional lanes — has to be honed, too. And this may be where Newgarden’s true advantage lies. He doesn’t always qualify up front on ovals. But after three-quarters of a race, you can be sure that not only is he up in the fight for the win, but he’s also spent every second up to that point carefully tuning his car to be what he needs it to be to beat you at the end. When a driver has that kind of speed on a certain type of track, beating them there feels so much more satisfying. I was able to out-duel Newgarden at Iowa Speedway — a track he’s won at more than anyone else — back in 2018, and it remains one of the sweetest victories. THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE FAST: NASHVILLE INDYCAR takes on Nashville Superspeedway this weekend, and this is a very different oval compared with others we’ve raced on so far in 2026. Phoenix Raceway and Gateway are short ovals, while Indianapolis Motor Speedway is longer as a 2.5-mile superspeedway. At 1.33 miles, Nashville is unique not only in its length, but also because of its surface. Concrete instead of asphalt means the tires react differently here than they do on other ovals, so setups from one oval track don’t necessarily translate to another seamlessly. That element makes it tough and crucial for the engineers to get on top of how to create the most mechanical grip possible. Dampers, spring packages and suspension geometries will be the name of the game. From there, it’s up to the drivers to figure out where the biggest bumps are — and in Nashville there are plenty — so they know what to avoid when trying to make a pass. You have to work hard in practice to run up on the high line and get comfortable being up there to have any shot at winning on Sunday. That’s where guys like Christian Rasmussen, Santino Ferrucci and Marcus Ericsson usually shine. But don’t count out the other two Penske drivers in Scott McLaughlin and David Malukas — one with short oval wins on his resume and the other with that first INDYCAR win in his sights. Or maybe the McLaren train will keep chugging down the tracks. In the two years since we moved this race from the streets of downtown to the superspeedway outside the city, O’Ward has led more laps than anyone, and he was leading comfortably last year before a blown tire took him out of contention and paved the way for, you guessed it, Newgarden to steal a popular hometown win. Some drivers prefer ovals, some road courses, some the streets. Yes, results play a part in that, but so does the feeling you get when driving them. I loved racing in INDYCAR specifically because there were all these different types of tracks to race on, and they all challenge, reward and punish you in different ways. While some drivers will be rubbing their hands together salivating because we’re back on an oval, and others will be wishing the road course streak was continuing, I always felt that whatever type of track I was driving into on a Thursday was, well, my favorite type of track! And that is one of many reasons I love INDYCAR racing! MORE DRIVER’S EYE: