Josef Newgarden spent the days before Road America doing something most drivers never have to think about. He was relearning how to trust his own left foot. A month after a heavy crash in the Indianapolis 500 left him in a walking boot, the two-time IndyCar champion arrived at the demanding road course outside Elkhart Lake knowing that Team Penske had once again readied a replacement, Felipe Nasr, in case the pain in that foot proved too much over 55 laps.
It is a strange place for a driver of Newgarden’s standing to find himself. He is one of the most accomplished Americans of his generation, the back to back Indy 500 winner of 2023 and 2024, and yet here he was, his seat on standby, his fitness a daily question rather than a given. That tension, between a champion who refuses to step aside and a team quietly preparing for the possibility that he might have to, has become one of the more human storylines of the IndyCar summer.
The crash that started it all
The injury traces back to the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500. On a Lap 125 restart, Newgarden cut things too fine through Turn 4, clipped the rumble strip and sent his Penske Chevrolet hard into the SAFER barrier. He climbed out, was checked over at the infield care center and released the same day, but the damage to his left foot lingered far longer than the bruises. By the following weekend in Detroit, he was moving around the paddock with a crutch and a protective boot, the foot too sore for him to stand on comfortably.
Detroit was where the public first saw how much it would cost him. The tight, bumpy street circuit punishes the left foot on the brake, and Newgarden looked visibly uncomfortable climbing in and out of the car. Penske activated Nasr, the Porsche Penske Motorsports IMSA GTP champion, as a fallback for that race. In the end Newgarden waved the Brazilian off and drove anyway, dragging his car from last to 10th in a performance that said a great deal about his stubbornness and very little about his comfort.
He later admitted the pain went beyond the foot itself. Compensating for an injured left leg over a race distance forces a driver to brace and load the rest of his body differently, and the strain spreads. None of that is visible from the grandstands or the broadcast booth, where a finishing position is just a number on a screen. Inside the cockpit it is an hour and a half of managing discomfort while still braking later and carrying more speed than 26 of the best drivers in the country. That Newgarden did it at all, let alone climbed from the back of the field, hinted at how badly he wanted to keep his own seat.
Then came the reward. Two weeks later at World Wide Technology Raceway, the 1.25 mile oval near St. Louis known to most fans simply as Gateway, Newgarden led the closing stint to win for the sixth time at the track. It was an emotional result for a driver who had flipped at the same circuit a year earlier, and it lifted him to sixth in the championship standings. For a man who had spent the spring in a boot, it was a reminder of why he keeps climbing back into the car.
Why Road America raised the stakes again
Gateway is an oval, where the left foot does comparatively little work. Road America is a different test entirely. The 4.014 mile, 14 turn natural terrain circuit features some of the heaviest braking zones in the series, long downhill stops into tight corners that load the left leg over and over for the better part of an hour. That is precisely why Penske chose to put Nasr back on standby for the XPEL Grand Prix rather than assume Newgarden would simply tough it out a third time.
Nasr, who has tested IndyCars on and off since 2019 and mastered Porsche’s hybrid 963 prototype in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, did not hide what the call meant to him. “Being called up as the first option again, it’s a really big honor for me,” he told RACER. “At the same time, I have a lot of respect for Josef and he’s trying the best he can to recover from that Indy 500 crash that he had. The team has called me up twice now and having done a bunch of testing for them in the past, I feel ready to help if I can be a positive help to them.”
The former Formula 1 driver described slotting back into a single seater as second nature. “It’s so natural to jump back in a single-seater, feel the G forces again, the high-speed cornering, the braking potential. All this stuff for me is phenomenal to feel, so I’m just ready, whatever the situation turns out to be.” He spent time in the simulator two days before the event, reacquainting himself with the car’s hybrid and regen systems and sitting in on every team meeting from the pre-event briefing onward. “I always wanted to have a proper shot at IndyCar,” Nasr said. “If that happens, being close to Team Penske, it would be amazing, but I’m just here on standby for my team. Whatever they need me to do, I’ll do.”
A champion unwilling to hand over the keys
For Newgarden, the calculation is simpler and far more personal. Handing the No. 2 Chevrolet to a capable replacement is the sensible thing to do for a body that needs time to heal. It is also the last thing a racing driver wants to do. Every weekend he sits out is a weekend a stand-in could shine, and every weekend he grits through is a weekend closer to the front of the field he is missing.
The standings underline the dilemma. Newgarden entered Road America sixth in the championship, within reach of the top three with a strong run. He has won at the Wisconsin circuit before, taking victory there in 2024, so the track holds good memories and real potential. A driver capable of contending for podiums does not lightly cede his seat, even to a friend, even on an injured foot. That is what makes the decision to keep Nasr on standby so awkward for everyone involved. The better Newgarden feels, the harder it becomes to justify benching him. The worse the foot reacts to those long braking zones, the more sense it makes.
There is a wider point here about what these athletes ask of themselves. Fans see the helmets and the sponsors and the polished post-race interviews, and it is easy to forget that the people inside the cars are managing pain, fatigue and risk that would sideline most of us for weeks. Newgarden’s quiet refusal to give up the car, even when his own team has lined up a replacement, is the kind of competitive instinct that built his two championships. It is also the kind that can complicate a clean recovery.
What comes next
Whatever the outcome at Road America, the Newgarden situation is unlikely to resolve cleanly until the foot is fully healed. Penske has shown it will keep Nasr ready, and the Brazilian has made clear he will answer the call without complaint while respecting the man whose seat he is shadowing. That is a healthy dynamic for a team, even if it is an uncomfortable one for a champion who would rather not need a backup at all.
For now, the story is less about lap times and more about a driver testing the limits of his own body week after week, deciding each time whether the reward is worth the pain. Newgarden has answered that question the same way twice already, climbing in and driving. His broader 2027 future at Penske remains its own ongoing conversation, but the immediate question is far more basic. How much can one foot take, and how long before its owner finally listens to it.
Sources:
- https://racer.com/2026/06/18/nasr-on-standby-for-team-penske-as-newgarden-continues-to-recover-from-foot-injury
- https://www.foxsports.com/stories/motor/josef-newgarden-2026-indy-500-crash-injury
- https://racer.com/2026/05/30/injured-newgarden-toughing-it-out-on-detroit-s-streets
- https://motorsportreports.com/?p=30537
