Red tire strategy pays off with Newgarden pole

Josef Newgarden admits that he was behind the eight ball after burning a set of new reds early in the opening phase of Verizon IndyCar Series qualifying at Sonoma, despite later rebounding to claim pole.

The championship leader – whose pole earned him an additional point – was the sole Penske driver in the first group and used one of his two sets of softer-compound tires to ensure his progression to phase two. His teammates, seeing his time, switched to blacks for the first phase, giving themselves the advantage of two new of reds for the final two qualifying stages.

Related Stories

Newgarden used his second new set in phase two, forcing him to fight for pole on scuffed tires. He responded with pole, and an 0.7s improvement on the previous lap record.

"We knew our car was fast," he said. "I think these guys, they're all capable of doing the same thing on used tires. Who is not to say that used tires would have been a little bit better for one lap? Maybe that was the case today.

"But we were behind the eight ball there, for sure, after the first round. We made the best decision we could as a group. We were first out. There was no way we couldn't run the reds because we just had no idea what people were going to run. We weren't sure if we would be secure on black tires.

"We ended up that we would have been safe, so we didn't need to run the reds. But obviously these guys were able to watch that and make a better decision in the second round. I was a little bit surprised, but at the same time I'm not. We have the best team out here giving us the best equipment. When you have that, you know anything is possible."