By alley - Nov 30, 2015, 2:09 PM ET

IndyCar Season Review: Josef Newgarden

What will you remember the 2015 IndyCar season for? Juan Pablo Montoya's teflon coating wearing off right at the time he needed it most? The introduction of the aero kits, several years after they were first mooted? Rocky Moran Jr.'s inspiring hour of track time at Long Beach?

To try to make sense of it all, RACER's Marshall Pruett, Robin Miller and Mark Glendenning asked each other some searching questions about all of 2015's regulars, which for the purpose of this review, includes anyone who started a minimum of half the races. Look for new installments every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

JOSEF NEWGARDEN
2015 starts: 16
2015 best finish: 1st (Barber, Toronto)
2015 championship position: seventh; 431pts

The biggest single threat to Newgarden's results were found on pitlane. Minus the routine position losses in the pits, how many additional wins - and places in the standings - could the kid have taken in 2015?

ROBIN MILLER: It's never pleasant to criticize pit crews because they're all busting their ass to do the best job possible in a dangerous environment. However, even someone as decent and pleasant as JoNew had to admit it was getting frustrating to come in leading and lose the top spot in the pits – which he did at Milwaukee and Iowa. He was long gone in the first 100 laps at Milwaukee when he pitted and lost 10 spots. At Iowa, he was clearly the class of the field but a hiccup on his final pit stop cost him a victory by half a second. Newgarden should have won three and probably four times in 2015 and he deserves the best possible people over the wall.

What was more impressive about Josef's breakthrough season: Two wins on road/street courses, or becoming the No. 1 driver at any track CFH visited?

MARSHALL PRUETT: That one's easy: Josef Newgarden, all-purpose driver, was a massive revelation the year.

The partnership of Newgarden and his race engineer Jeremy Milless, the resources of the combined CFH Racing team, and the switch to Chevrolet power saw the No. 67 rise to prominence at almost every track - at the ovals, in particular.

Few would have predicted Josef would displace teammate Ed Carpenter as CFH's top dog, yet Newgarden finished ahead of Ed at all six ovals. Some of Carpenter's poor showings weren't down to performance; an early tangle and crash at Indy blighted what should have been a strong showing, and hitting Newgarden at Fontana after a communications error with his spotter wasn't very Ed-like. It was the days where both CFH cars were on pace, however, where Newgarden stepped up to make a difference.

Carpenter impressed in his climb from 22nd to 10th at Milwaukee, and improved from 11th to sixth at Iowa. Newgarden, for the sake of comparison, earned the first pole of his career at Milwaukee, led 109 laps, was often the fastest car in the 250-lap race, and had Carpenter handled the entire time before the aforementioned pit stop issues relegated him to fifth. Iowa was another example where Newgarden started ahead of Ed (P7) and finished ahead (P2) of the ovalmeister.

Does it mean Ed's the second-best oval driver at CFH going forward? Not at all. But I do think it will be harder for Carpenter to reassert his dominance as IndyCar continues to trim in-season test days from the calendar. Having Newgarden in the car every weekend and building momentum from round to round with Milless is a decided advantage over Ed, who must get up to speed with race engineer Matt Barnes in an instant.

Take a ridiculous talent, who finally got his hands on all the tools needed to succeed, and had an awesome oval teammate and educator like Carpenter to fill in any oval gaps that existed prior to 2015, and maybe Josef's left-turn performances shouldn't have been hard to predict.

Why was Josef able to outqualify Carpenter on ovals so often?

MARK GLENDENNING: I think Ed's probably asking himself the same thing. Newgarden had a stellar season by any measure, but for me, the qualifying score within CFH on ovals was the most remarkable bit of all. There were six ovals on the 2015 schedule, and Newgarden started ahead of his boss at five of them. (Carpenter had him covered at Fontana). Josef's average starting position at an oval this year was 7.8; Carpenter's was 14.1.

The answer to the question probably has more to do with the #20 side of the garage. Using Newgarden's performance as a guage of the team's overall potential, and factoring in what history has taught us about Ed's prowess at turning left, the disparity has at least as much to do with whatever malaise was affecting Carpenter's car as it does with Newgarden's achievements, noteworthy as they are. After putting the car fourth on the grid at Fontana, Carpenter gave his clearest hint that something was fundamentally wrong when he spoke about the value of a rare week off in the schedule in the lead-up to that weekend.

"We had been struggling on the ovals and the week off really gave us a chance to get immersed in what our problems were and come up with some good ideas to come here and get back on track," he said at the time. "I just have to thank all the guys on the team, mechanics, engineers, everybody, for putting in the hard work to get the cars driving nice again."

The problem was, his qualifying results actually got worse after that: 22nd at Milwaukee, 11th at Iowa, 21st at Pocono.

So were Ed, his engineer and his car all struggling to speak the same language? Was there something fundamentally weird about the chassis he switched to after trashing his original one in the practice crash at Indy? Carpenter's input was clearly benefiting Newgarden, but why, then, did whatever was working on the #67 not translate across to the #20? I don't know. But while Newgarden was rocking it everywhere he went this year, Carpenter was firing blanks. And his problems contributed as much as Newgarden's strong form to the gap that opened up between them.