In 2024, a new villain emerged in the IndyCar Series: Josef Newgarden. The all-American driver from Team Penske has long served as the face of the series, with ample support from fans around the world. But this year, something changed — and Newgarden was suddenly persona non grata among countless fans of the sport. But why?

For this story, I spoke in depth to 22 IndyCar fans who wanted to share their complex thoughts about Newgarden. Eleven of those people characterized themselves as fans who soured on Newgarden; three were never a fan of Newgarden to begin with; two still considered themselves fans albeit in a more complex way; five remain staunch Newgarden supporters; and one who went from a hater to a fan. While this is by no means a fully comprehensive study of fan sentiment, it did help me get to the bottom of just why Newgarden has become such a complex character.

Josef Newgarden’s journey from fan favorite to enemy No. 1

Let’s not mince words: 2024 was not a good year for Josef Newgarden. In a season that saw him take his second consecutive victory at the Indianapolis 500 and an additional win at Gateway, the No. 2 Team Penske driver quickly fell into the throes of scandal.

But before we dig into that, let’s establish some context.

Heading into 2024, Josef Newgarden seemed as if he was preparing to lock in. He parted ways with his longtime media producer Brian Simpson and, in the process, nixed the YouTube Series, Bus Bros, that he hosted with Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin — allegedly after a disagreement about the future of the show. He unfollowed everyone on social media, dedicating himself to taking a third IndyCar Championship.

It was a sudden shift for Newgarden. Heading into his 13th year in the sport, the driver from Tennessee was taking a far different tack than what had characterized his career until that point.

Since he first joined IndyCar in 2012 with the small Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing outfit, Newgarden has become the unofficial face of American open-wheel. Handsome, personable, and flaunting a goofy sense of humor, Newgarden impressed in front of the camera as much as he did behind the wheel. Early YouTube series like “Incognito” saw him ask fans if they’d ever heard of that Josef Newgarden kid back when he was first starting his career — and from that point on, Newgarden was the one to call if a clip needed filming.

His role as unofficial series representative took Newgarden to various different filming locales: Corn fields in Iowa, space camp, improv comedy theaters, the NFL combine, and so much more. When he signed with Team Penske in 2017, fans wondered if the notoriously buttoned-up organization would temper Newgarden’s sillier side — and while it certainly had an impact, Newgarden still found ways to let loose, such as with the Bus Bros series he co-hosted with Scott McLaughlin.

And yet, Newgarden entered the 2024 season with a completely new attitude. He was stepping back from all that promotional work, and he was focusing entirely on racing. When he secured a dominant victory at the season opener in St. Pete, Florida, it seemed as if that new mindset was paying off.

Enter: The push-to-pass scandal.

Josef Newgarden is disqualified for cheating at St. Pete

In April, almost six weeks after the IndyCar season opener in St. Pete, a bombshell dropped: Team Penske had cheated.

IndyCar released a statement that read, “An extensive review of data from the race on the Streets of St. Petersburg revealed that Team Penske manipulated the overtake system so that the No. 2, 3 and 12 cars had the ability to use Push to Pass on starts and restarts.”

Push to Pass offers a limited boost of power to drivers, which they can access via the push of a button. But P2P use is strictly forbidden on starts and restarts — and two of Penske’s drivers had utilized it.

Newgarden, who had won at St. Pete, was the biggest offender of the three. Newgarden utilized P2P multiple times throughout the race for extended periods, including on restarts. His teammate, Scott McLaughlin, also used P2P on a restart, albeit for a brief 1.9 seconds.

Newgarden and McLaughlin were both disqualified from the results of the race. Penske’s third driver Will Power was docked 10 points in the championship; the No. 12 driver never used P2P illegally, but the defeat that allowed his teammates to utilize it was active on his car.

While Power and McLaughlin addressed the concerns immediately, Newgarden waited a week to host a tearful solo press conference ahead of IndyCar’s next race at Barber Motorsports Park. In that press conference, Newgarden denied knowingly breaking the rules; instead, he claimed that he had misinterpreted the rules, which he thought had been altered to allow P2P on restarts.

According to team manager Tim Cindric, one line of code had been included in the team’s set-up, which had been in place during hybrid testing sessions over the off-season. That line of code allowed drivers to use P2P on starts and restarts — and Newgarden asserted in the press conference that he had assumed altered restart rules for an exhibition race at Thermal Club counted for the whole year, and that he could use P2P during times when it had previously been disallowed.

“The tricky thing about this whole situation is I didn’t know I did anything wrong until Monday after Long Beach,” Newgarden said during the press conference. “It’s the first time I heard that I broke rules.

“You guys can call me every name in the book. You can call me incompetent, call me an idiot, call me an asshole, call me, you know, stupid, whatever you wanna call me.

“But I’m not a liar. I didn’t leave St. Pete and thinking we pulled something over on somebody.”

Newgarden acknowledged in the press conference that his reasoning sounded far-fetched but maintained the stance that “I know why it happened… and I don’t think it’s very believable. Somehow, some way the [No.] 2 team convinced ourselves that there was a rule change to restart specifically with overtake usage.”

In the aftermath, Team Penske also suspended key team personnel, particularly those on Newgarden’s car, ahead of the Indianapolis 500. But when Newgarden crossed the finish line ahead of Pato O’Ward and thanked those suspended team members in his interview, many fans soured.

The push-to-pass saga came up in every conversation I had with IndyCar fans, and for many, it was the pivotal point that soured many folks who considered themselves Newgarden fans.

Multiple fans noted that the consequences seemed too light for the situation, while Newgarden’s tears in his Barber press conference somehow seemed false.

One fan, Danny, told me that Team Penske’s role in the whole situation further complicated the matter, especially because Penske Entertainment is now the owner of the IndyCar Series and also has ample ties to Chevrolet, one of two power unit suppliers in the series,

“Said employer owning the series, as well as owning your team and engine manufacturer then makes it all the worse when it’s found out that you egregiously cheated to win a race that you probably would have won comfortably anyway,” Danny said.

“Josef then acted like he was the victim after his win was taken away for this definite accident… after he was the one driver that used the P2P exploit the most, and blatantly so.”

According to Danny, that “personal victim complex just made the situation ten times worse.”

Another fan named Leela told me that while she was already questioning Newgarden’s sincerity after the press conference, “what really solidified my haterism was the 2024 [Indy] 500.

“The constant narrative from the broadcast and from Josef himself about ‘struggling through adversity,’ when the adversity in question was cheating, was so distasteful.

“And thanking the people who were suspended for P2P-gate right after winning the 500 was awful, optics-wise.”

For a certain segment of IndyCar viewers who never quite saw the appeal of Josef Newgarden, the push-to-pass scandal only served to reaffirm their dislike of this particular driver.

A fan named Chris identified himself as a “die-hard Honda fan,” and therefore never a particular fan of any Chevy driver — of which Newgarden has long been one. But he was further soured by how Newgarden approached the aftermath of the P2P scandal.

“It wasn’t like he cut a corner and got away with it,” Chris told me. “He willingly abused a clear performance advantage.

“Then he tried to appear contrite and honest, but why should anyone believe you, JN?”

“I don’t recognize Josef Newgarden anymore.”

The overwhelming sentiment I gathered from my conversations with IndyCar viewers, more than anything else, is that Josef Newgarden changed in 2024. To put it simply, the 33-year-old driver is no longer the same person he was back when he first began making his mark in IndyCar. Whether fans interpreted that difference as the natural consequence of growing older, or indicative of something more sinister, varied from fan to fan.

One of the fans mentioned before, Danny, summed it up succinctly, noting that “the contrast” between Newgarden’s “blunt, closed-off” persona of 2024 is in direct contract to the “seemingly open, honest, friendly, and fun face of the sport” persona that Newgarden adopted for years.

“The contrast makes it feel like the open, bubbly and funny guy who we got to know isn’t really who he is,” Danny explained.

“Looking back, you can’t help wonder if he was faking it for the cameras, and in a series that prides itself on having authenticity as its main drawing point for its drivers over F1 (traditionally at least), it feels like a gut punch.”

Another fan, Anna, is newer to IndyCar but still felt that Newgarden’s shift from “the quintessential nice guy” to being “PR appropriate and less genuine in his reactions” came as a complete shock.

“I don’t hate him, I’m just disappointed he would cheat so blatantly to win,” she said. “What a shame from someone I perceived as a Nice Guy.”

Another fan felt that Newgarden was always “too perfect,” but that the driver ultimately grew on him, causing him to “overlook” some of the ruder things Newgarden did: “The pass on Simon [Pagenaud] at Gateway in 2019, punting Romain [Grosjean] in Nashville and saying, ‘Welcome to IndyCar,’ the infamous ‘It’s Josef’ tweet directed to Santino [Ferrucci] and others.”

Another fan summed it up succinctly: “People don’t like when they get sold something counterfeit, and for many of them, it sure looks like that’s what they got [with Newgarden]. Just took a while to find out…”

A different take on the fall of Newgarden

While the Push to Pass drama was a clear turning point for many IndyCar fans, some Josef Newgarden supporters challenged me to dig deeper in order to pinpoint just when Newgarden became the “villain.”

A Newgarden fan, Alex, co-hosts a show called the Gay Racing Podcast and wasn’t shy about sharing his thoughts with me — ones that suggest a different narrative at play.

“My personal take on why [Newgarden] was framed as the series villain by certain media outlets is because… he’s locked in for the race,” Alex explained. “Bus Bros ended, to my understanding, because Josef wanted to shift his focus back to the racing (and I personally don’t think he was having fun with it anymore following backlash for a joke made about [David] Malukas).”

Alex was the first of a few Newgarden fans who posited the David Malukas drama as being the first domino to fall in the public perception of Newgarden.

In an episode of Bus Bros, Scott McLaughlin jokingly referred to Malukas as a “f-ck boy” — but the comment quickly spiraled as the drivers involved joked about having “beef” with one another, and fans and IndyCar tried to spin the story into a genuine rivalry.

“David… trying to seemingly shoehorn his way into Bus Bros was icky, and [when] they joked about it, [Malukas’] fans reacted insanely,” Alex said.

Another fan who requested to remain anonymous suggested to me that the “spat” with Malukas went against the ethos of Team Penske, an organization that is notorious for remaining buttoned-up and PR-perfect.

“The Malukas thing, it was the first time Bus Bros was getting bad press,” the fan said. “Of course Penske’s going to just kill the show after that. David’s dad basically saved Indy Lights from folding by running, like, half the field in 2021. I bet they got told off for picking fun at David.

“If I was Josef, I’d do a 180 and lock down my socials after that, too. I’d try to lock in, too. Everyone just thought he was an asshole for doing it.”

Both fans were clear that the Push to Pass saga raised ample ethical concerns that they’ve had to mull over — but explained that they felt Newgarden had already been targeted as a bad guy by media before it had even happened.

“I think Josef just genuinely screwed up with the P2P thing,” the anonymous fan told me, “but you had publications trying to vilify him way before any of that even happened. Like, I get it; the guy is racing for the dominant team that’s owned by the same guy who owns the series. You just need him to be a villain for you.”

The Newgarden fans who won’t leave his side

Multiple fans I spoke to, particularly those who have had in-person encounters with Newgarden, found it difficult to reconcile their personal experiences with the burgeoning sentiment that the Penske driver is somehow false or unkind.

One fan who attended the Music City Grand Prix was disappointed by the long autograph lines that meant the bulk of fans waiting for a signature would fail to get one. The fan told me that almost every driver left right when the session ended, “but Josef stayed for at least another 45 minutes to still sign autographs and take pictures. I gained a lot of respect for him doing that when he probably had a million other things to do.”

Another fan, Ryan, came out as transgender to Newgarden before anyone else in their life — and it was Newgarden’s overwhelmingly positive response that helped this fan embrace their identity.

And there’s Aimee, who won a contest in 2018 to appear in the background of a commercial with Newgarden. Unable to find childcare, she brought her three-year-old son to the shoot with her.

“After [the commercial] was shot, Josef came to our table and thanked us for coming,” Aimee told me.

“He then sat down and had a 15 minute conversation with us, mostly [my son], about racecars and food. He was so genuine and gracious when he asked [my son] who his favorite driver was and he spit out ‘Kyle Busch!’

“I was obviously embarrassed, but Josef said he was also a Kyle Busch fan. [My son] then invited him to our house to play race cars. Ever since that day, [my son] has been a massive Josef fan, and he definitely won me over that day too. Every time we see him, he remembers who we are and asks how we are doing.”

While many fans who have personally met Newgarden seem to be more likely to have a positive opinion of the driver, it would be frankly impossible for the Penske driver to meet with everyone who tunes in to watch IndyCar. So what can Newgarden do to rehabilitate his reputation?

What will 2025 bring for Josef Newgarden?

What’s next for Josef Newgarden? How should the Tennessee driver approach his 14th year in IndyCar? Should he lean into being the “heel” of the series, or should he try to make amends with a deeply conflicted IndyCar fanbase?

What if neither answer is the right one?

Because so much of this issue stems from fans feeling like Newgarden is no longer the person they first assumed he was — be that because of his use of Push to Pass, or of his responses to media, or of his single-minded pursuit of the championship, or of his separation from other drivers — many IndyCar fans are likely to take Newgarden’s words and actions with a grain of salt.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that IndyCar has entered its five-month off-season, where fans can choose just how much IndyCar they think about — and just how much Newgarden factors into those thoughts.

In this modern era, many people have become plagued with something known as “celebrity fatigue.” If you had grown tired of hearing about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in the build-up to the Super Bowl this year, you understand this concept firsthand — and after the P2P scandal swept through IndyCar, we rarely had a break away from the sport to recalibrate our senses. And we never stopped hearing about Josef Newgarden.

How Josef Newgarden uses these next few off-season months will be critical for how his image evolves in 2025 — but there may be another long season ahead of him.