Strong start to 2026 puts reconfigured Team Penske on a roll

Scott McLaughlin started on the pole and finished second at St. Petersburg. Josef Newgarden had a terrible run in qualifying, but fought his way from 23rd to seventh while David Malukas recovered from a self-induced blown tire to salvage a fifth-place start with a 13th-place finish.

Moving to Phoenix Raceway, Penske qualified 1-2 with Malukas and Newgarden, and Newgarden went on to win with a late roll of the dice on new tires while Malukas claimed third and McLaughlin snared eighth.

Leaving Arizona for Sunday’s first race around the streets of Arlington, Texas, Team Penske’s taken the championship lead with Newgarden, has McLaughlin sitting a handy third, and Malukas in sixth.

Reigning champion Alex Palou was victorious at the first race and fell to fifth in the standings after an early crash at Phoenix, and is expected to rebound at Arlington, but Penske’s powerful start to the season has nothing to do with Palou’s surprising 24th-place result on Saturday.

Following a humiliating 2025 season where its best driver placed eighth in the championship, it’s the depth of existing talent within Team Penske and the major offseason managerial, engineering, and driver changes that have dramatically altered its competitive stature.

“I think it's just starting,” said team president Jonathan Diuguid, who also serves as Newgarden’s race strategist. “We pretty much talk about everything, whether it was finishing second in qualifying yesterday. We could have gone around and gave each other high fives. We were talking about why we weren't on the pole. We [on Newgarden’s No. 2 Chevy] qualified poorly in St. Petersburg. We talked about how we could be better.”

Diuguid’s method of running the team, which he inherited last May, is the same he uses while running Penske’s championship-winning factory Porsche 963 IMSA GTP program. Under the former race engineer’s direction, an earnest approach is taken while leading the three-car IndyCar effort, which has underperformed over the last two seasons.

A commitment to being honest about shortcomings and embracing open dialogue about how to improve is one of the reasons the Team Penske of 2026 – which holds first, third, and sixth in the championship – looks so different from its recent self.

“I think that's the biggest thing that's going to keep moving us forward is being open about the good parts and the bad parts,” Diuguid added. “I would say that's what got us the win today, was we had a plan. We stuck to it. We were pretty open. I think if you listened to the radio, you could have probably figured out what we were going to do. We weren't talking any codes or anything. We wanted to be exactly clear and make no mistakes. Like Josef said, it was execution that mattered.”