WATCH: Josef Newgarden’s Detroit weekend off to a horror start, days after Indy 500 controversy
Team Penske's Josef Newgarden has not been having the best of times in IndyCar this year. During the Indy 500 (May 25), he had to start the race from the last row following the modified attenuators controversy, and this week, he has been knocked out of qualifying in Round 1 at the 2025 Detroit Grand Prix.
In the qualifying (Round 1) session on May 31, Newgarden clipped his car's left front, and that brought an abrupt end to his Saturday outing.
Seeing the incident, the commentators also jumped onto their respective microphones and added the following:
"Oh, Josef Newgarden, he has tapped the wall. He clipped the wall, it's bent. Left rear totally. He has got David Malukas right behind him. So that would have held up Dave, but that shouldn't affect him. But that's going to affect everyone else, day done for Newgarden." The commentators said (from 0:05 onwards).
Following the dismal qualifying, Josef Newgarden is all set to start the 2025 Detroit Grand Prix from the south end of the pack.
Josef Newgarden's take on his 2025 Indy 500 outing
Josef Newgarden has had several issues throughout the 2025 season of America's highest class of open-wheel racing. All his troubles have not allowed him to get in many clean race weekends, and because of this, he is currently in 13th position in the drivers' standings. So far, the Team Penske driver has only managed to put on board 104 points.
Newgarden's 22nd-place finish in last week's Indy 500 also did not yield a decent number of points. Following his dismal outing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he had the following to add back then.
"It's tough to not have a shot here at the end. It's a team sport. It takes everything to win here. I'm still immensely grateful to run at Indianapolis. As tough as it is to take, I still feel grateful to be out here today. I just wish we had a chance to fight for it. We didn't get to see what we had in this Shell V-Power Chevrolet. We were slowly working forward. Thank you to our partners and our whole team. It's a big effort and a shame to not be there in the fight," Newgarden said via Team Penske.
In last year's IndyCar season, Josef Newgarden was able to end his 17-race campaign in eighth place in the drivers' championship. In the process of doing so, he secured two Grand Prix wins, two pole positions, seven top-fives, and eight top-ten finishes.
Keeping this in view, it will be extremely fascinating to see how the two-time IndyCar champion performs in the remaining races, starting from the Detroit Grand Prix on June 1.
Newgarden would ideally want to end the 2025 season in a better position than last year's eighth place. However, in order to do so, he has a lot of work ahead of him.