Newgarden back on top at Indy

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: 16 May 2025

Josef Newgarden loves Indianapolis and has fired his latest statement by being fastest in Practice 4.

Newgarden, the winner of the last two Indianapolis 500’s, shows why he is ready to win another by being fastest on Thursday.

He and Scott Dixon were the only two cars to break the 40s barrier by being in the 39’s in Practice 4.

And it was Newgarden, who was well clear with his 39.1720s lap being a commanding 0.2070s faster than Dixon.

It continues the Team Penske driver’s strong form having been in the top three in every session so far as Fast Friday beckons.

“Pretty solid week so far,” Newgarden said.

“The team has being doing a lot of work and we’ve shown up really prepared.

“We’re sort of going through the motions, and can’t ever get ahead of ourselves.

“We’re excited for Fast Friday. It’s going to be quite hot tomorrow, so we’re going to be trying to work around that and forecast the change going into Saturday and Sunday as the temperature is going to fluctuate quite a bit.

“Feeling good so far, the car is in a great window.”

In regards tot he Antipodeans, they did not set the world on fire, but logged important miles.

Outside of Dixon, Scott McLaughlin led the charge, rounding out the top 10 being 0.691s off the pace.

“It was a pretty smooth day for me,” McLaughlin said.

“The last couple of days we’ve run through race settings today and qual today. We’ve already done 20 something laps.

“I feel really strong and Chevy feels really strong. Playing with the different hybrid settings has been fun.”

Marcus Armstrong was not too far away in 14th, while Australia’s Will Power was only 24th and got just 29 laps under his belt as three others clocked over 100.

Attention will start to turn to qualifying with Fast Friday coming up and pole being decided on Sunday.

Image: IndyCar

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