Newgarden, engineer Campe aim for fast start

How long will it take Josef Newgarden to win his first race for Team Penske? It all depends on how quickly he jells with his new Penske engineer, Brian Campe. Coming off years of success with his former Ed Carpenter Racing team and engineer Jeremy Milless, the number one priority for Newgarden and Campe during the offseason has been to establish a strong working rapport.

The language of racing – the unique ways a driver expresses needs to an engineer and the engineer's ability to convey their setup thoughts back to that driver – could take anywhere from weeks to months to develop. Coming off three winning years with Juan Pablo Montoya, including an Indy 500 win (pictured), Campe is confident he and the 25-year-old Tennessean will quickly develop their own shorthand.

"You're getting to know each other and learning the language," Campe told RACER. "Part of it is going through each race he did last year and looking at, OK, what did you have at St. Pete, what were your main problems?

"He could describe the problems to me and I would pick up on the language of how he likes to describe the car this way or that way. And then I can give him some feedback on what we had as our major issue and get some insight into our process for how we go through the weekend. That's where the process started."

Leaving the warm and close-knit ECR team for the notoriously crisp and clinical team run by Roger Penske was bound to offer some culture shock. To his delight, Newgarden found a welcoming group of Penske engineers, drivers and mechanics after signing to replace Montoya.

"What I can tell you, speaking to the chemistry and the atmosphere of the teams, it is really actually quite impressive," he said. "Yeah, the drivers, the engineers, the mechanics, the different groups, if you look at it from just cars and the groups in each car, everyone really pulls in the same direction. There's a good morale among everyone and they've been super warm and open since I got here."

Together, Newgarden and Campe have shown plenty of speed in pre-season testing and during Friday's practice sessions where the No. 2 Penske Chevy (below, LAT photo) placed sixth overall. Their driver/engineer vocabulary is clearly expanding, and in many cases, tonal inflections – a slight rise or drop in how they describe the handling or performance is all that's needed to make a point.

"It's the little things," Newgarden surmised. "When I say the car is understeering this much, he can hear it and know where my head's at. If I hear his response and it's the same, or maybe his answer is kind of mellow, I know there could be a different view than my own. Sometimes it's what you say over the radio or in the engineering debrief where you get the meaning of what you're saying across, and other times it's how we say it that can really tell the story."

When he and Campe can reach the point where a look, a nod, a flinch, or other subtle cues can speak volumes in the directions to take on making the No. 2 car the fastest in the field, those wins – and maybe a couple of championships – should start to flow.

"The offseason was to peel back the layers of the onion," Campe said. "I told Josef, 'You can't hurt my feelings, so you need to be as honest with me as you can. If we are not very good, don't sugarcoat it or whatever, tell me what your feeling is; my job is to give you everything you need to make you go fast.'"

Fresh from Penske's NASCAR engineering program, Campe embarked on his new IndyCar engineering career when Montoya arrived in 2014. Coming from three seasons with an outspoken character in the No. 2 – which also included a run to second in the 2015 IndyCar championship – Campe has enjoyed the challenge of onboarding Newgarden and learning his working style.

"Having Juan to start out for me was great because he was a veteran and could help as much as I could point us in the right direction," he said. "With Josef coming in, it's another step for me to grow as a race engineer. Maybe start to turn over some of those stones that were unturned previously – just because, let's say, Montoya was set in his ways and we went in that direction."

Newgarden is looking forward to the same chance to grow with Campe.

"It's a good opportunity for both of us to continue learning and becoming better at our crafts," he said. "I loved working with Jeremy [Milless], but when you look at it, I'm only going to get better at what I do by going through this process with a new engineer."

With their first IndyCar race almost here, Campe says there's a beautiful simplicity that will be demonstrated over 110 laps on Sunday. Beyond all the efforts to learn each other's language, they'll only have one job to complete in the No. 2 when the green flag waves.

"Our job is to just be fast, so expectations and all that other stuff about being a new combination will take care of itself," he said. "Don't worry about that other stuff because the rest takes care of itself after that."