'No excuse for it, it was my fault' - Newgarden

It was the costliest pit stop of his season and it could wind up losing the IndyCar crown for Josef Newgarden.

Running anywhere between eighth and 12th most of the afternoon, Newgarden inherited the lead during the final pit stop sequence Sunday and he pitted on Lap 46 of the 60-lap Grand Prix at The Glen. As he exited his pit trying to beat out teammate Will Power, the 25-year-old lost control on cold tires, smacked the guardrail and was center-punched from behind by Sebastien Bourdais.

REPLAY:@JosefNewgardenmakes contact with the wall exiting pit lane.#INDYCAR#INDYCARGPhttps://t.co/1I2Xejdij6pic.twitter.com/sfG6hLjMY8— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar)September 3, 2017

Suddenly, the young man who came into the next-to-last race of 2017 with a 31-point lead found himself limping around the track in 18th position...and that's where he finished. And heading to Sonoma in two weeks for the finale, he only leads four-time champion Scott Dixon by three points.

"I felt like we were in a good position until that final pit stop. No excuse for it. It was my fault," said Newgarden, who had won three of the last four races for Roger Penske. "I saw Will leave right in front of us and I just locked it up and slid over into the wall. Then [Bourdais] got into the back of me.

"I messed it up there at the beginning of the (last regular) stop sliding too far into the box for my guys, so I didn't give them an easy time. We didn't have a good stop because of it. A lot of that is on me. Exiting the pits, I thought we had gotten by Will. He clicked the button earlier and I made a mistake leaving and just locked up.

"I touched the guardrail and then got slammed into. It was a couple of mistakes back-to-back, which isn't where we didn't want to be. Hard to make a mistake like that."

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The Sonoma race pays double points, so it wasn't like even a 20-point lead would be safe but Newgarden's mistake really opened the door for his competition. Teammate Helio Castroneves, going for his first championship, is only 22 points behind in third while defending champ Simon Pagenaud is 34 back in fourth.

But there's no quit in Penske's sophomore driver and he remained as upbeat as possible afterward.

"This day could have gone many ways. We can make our own destiny with that. That's great. Going to Sonoma, you want to be able to control your own destiny, and we can do that. Wish we could have a bigger cushion, but I think it was always going to come down to this final race and that's what it's gonna be.

"This team is resilient; they gave me what I needed today. It's unfortunate, but there's nothing I can do about it. We'll go to Sonoma in a couple of weeks and race for it."