How Josef Newgarden's IndyCar Win at Road America Was Worth a Cool $1 Million Bonus

You might say Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden won two races for the price of one in Sunday’s Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America.

And boy did he cash in.

First, Newgarden won the 55-lap race, holding off runner-up and Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, as well as depriving pole sitter and third-place finisher Alexander Rossi of his first win since 2019.

“I was just trying to stay focused on what I had to do,” Newgarden said of the five-lap sprint to the checkered flag off the final restart.

Wrapping up the top-5 were Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta.

But equally as important—and perhaps more importantly to the wallets of Newgarden and his team members—he earned a $1 million bonus by becoming the first driver to win on IndyCar’s three different types of tracks: oval (Texas), street course (Long Beach) and road course (Road America) by the PeopleReady Force for Good Challenge.

Newgarden and his team take home half that cool million, while the other half goes to charity.

“Just so proud to be here and PeopleReady, I kept forgetting about this million bucks, and now finally to get it done and most importantly to give that money to charity, half of that money is going to SeriousFun Children’s Network and Wags and Walks in Nashville,” Newgarden said. “I hope they’re happy about it because that’s a lot of money coming their way.

“That’s what makes IndyCar so tough. It’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen. … To be able to hit all these disciplines with this team is, for me, it’s just the best series in the world. I just love driving IndyCar.”

Newgarden, who moves up two spots into third place in the driver standings, 32 points behind Ericsson and just five points behind Team Penske teammate Will Power, earned the win as Road America celebrated the 40th anniversary of its first Indy car race, held in 1982 (under CART sanctioning).

Ericsson now regains the points lead by 27 points over Power, who was No. 1 after winning last Sunday in the final race at Detroit’s Belle Isle.

O'Ward's Misfortune Is Rossi's Fortune

Rossi’s teammate starting next season at Arrow McLaren SP, Pato O’Ward, lost his engine with seven laps to go, forcing him to pull off the track and bring out a full-course yellow caution.

O’Ward’s misfortune (he finished 26th in the 27-driver field) proved to be fortunate to Rossi, who had been gaining the previous six laps on race leader Newgarden, cutting Newgarden’s 3.4-second lead to 2.8 seconds when the caution came out.

But alas, it was not enough for Rossi to rally back from, as Newgarden pulled away and Ericsson passed Rossi to take away the eventual runner-up spot.

“Probably a little disappointing when you start on pole and can't convert,” Rossi said. “It was generally a good day I think. Josef had a little bit better pace than us. I think we were the second best car. We were pretty aggressive on the (final) restart there to try and do something, just kind of overstepped a little bit. That's what allowed Marcus to get by. Ultimately I don't know that we would have been able to win.

“A little disappointing, but all in all I think it was a very positive weekend for us for obvious reasons (including starting from the pole).”

Still, Rossi continues to ride a streak of momentum and building confidence.

“I think you get a little bit of confidence as results come,” Rossi said. “Yeah, I mean, I guess we're still looking for a win. But it's certainly been a lot different these past couple races than it has been for the races preceding that. That's a good thing. There's still areas we can improve and need to be better.”

Long Day for Jimmie Johnson

Even with Ericsson’s runner-up finish, it was still a rough day for team owner Chip Ganassi.