Two races into the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season, it’s been a remarkable turnaround for Team Penske versus 2021. Last year, the team didn’t win until the tenth race of the season, when Josef Newgarden finally got a victory at Mid-Ohio. Newgarden was also the only Penske driver to really be in contention for the title, as Will Power struggled for results through the first half of the season, Simon Pagenaud was a regular top-10 driver but not much more and Scott McLaughlin was getting to grips with IndyCar as a series rookie.

How different things have kicked off in 2022. The team has won both races run thus far, has all three of its drivers in the top-4 of the championship with McLaughlin leading the charge, and confidence is sky-high going into Long Beach. But the change is smaller than it would seem, Newgarden says. Asked by Champweb how he explains the team’s change in fortunes and whether going back from four to three full-time cars was a factor, the two-time IndyCar champion was adamant the pace has always been there.

“Honestly, I thought it was so funny last year, we kept getting bombarded,” Newgarden told Champweb during this week’s online media session ahead of the Long Beach Grand Prix. “The first eight races people were like, 'What's wrong with you guys? How have you not had a win?’ It was just becoming comical because our performance was actually pretty good. We had good performances, and they just weren't translating.”

There was no particular reason why that win didn’t come, explained Newgarden. “We had an issue here, an issue there, and we could never really rattle off a complete victory. Because that went on for whatever it was, I think it was seven or eight events, everyone just assumed that there was a really big issue within our team. There wasn't. For me the performance was always there, especially in the #2 car. We showcased that in the middle of the season and almost had a good rally to win the championship, but just didn't quite get there.”

The real test: Indianapolis

This year’s strong start is the result of a lot of effort put in during the off-season, he noted. “We knew that we had some deficiencies all around and across the board. I felt like we were capable of winning the championship last year, but even when you have that capability, you can still have deficiencies that you have to improve on. Indianapolis was number one for us. That was probably the biggest struggle that we had all year. It's pretty glaring. We definitely had a problem there. Then across the board you think we've just cleaned up a lot of areas where we could have improved as a team, and that's why you are seeing all three cars come out of the gates pretty strong.”

But even though the team put in plenty of work over the winter, Newgarden said he did not know for sure whether all those efforts would pay off. “You don't know until you run the first couple of races and see where you stack up, but I think so far the evidence suggests that the work we've put in has been in the right direction. The real test is going to be Indianapolis. That's the one place that we struggled the most, and so when we go into the month of May it's going to be interesting to see if the work has really paid off for that specific track.”

Asked by Champweb whether he feels more confident going into the Indianapolis 500 this year, Newgarden said this was definitely the case. “I do. I strongly do. The problem is I went into last year's month of May feeling like we had done everything we could to be at the top of our game and at the top of the board, and it was quite frankly the opposite. It happens sometimes. We took some directions. We made some decisions that obviously weren't the right ones. We've just doubled down again. We've reassessed everything. We've tried to look under every stone that we already looked under just to make sure that we're looking at it correctly.”

The team’s performance at Texas has also given Newgarden a lot of extra confidence. “I think Texas was a good indicator for us. We seemed to have good speed with our cars. Now we just have to translate that to the super speedway package. I think the possibility of us having a better run there is much higher as I look at it right now.”