Newgarden’s Desire for F1 Move Declining Due to Focus on Manufacturers Over Drivers

Josef Newgarden says his desire to race in Formula 1 has dropped in recent years as the championship is aimed more for manufacturers than it is individual drivers.

As a Team Penske driver in the NTT IndyCar Series, Newgarden has twice won the Drivers’ title and will be bidding for a third when the championship gets underway next month around the Streets of St Petersburg, and he has often been linked with a move to Formula 1.

However, the thirty-one-year-old says the focus is put on the cars rather than the drivers, which for him puts doubts in his mind about his desire to race in the Formula 1.

“For me the allure of F1 I think is the gravity of the cars,” Newgarden is quoted as saying by Autoweek during the IndyCar pre-season media days event.

“When I think about F1, I think about a manufacturers championship, trying to build the quickest cars that you can within – I should say within an unreasonable budget. That’s what was exciting about it.

“The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve been in racing and watched Formula 1, I don’t know it’s somewhere I really want to race.  It doesn’t look as much of a driver’s championship to me.”

Despite his apparent indifference to racing in Formula 1, Newgarden says he would still like to experience what it would be like to drive a Formula 1 car and says he would then be able to be in a position to speak about it on a more subjective level.

“It’s a very impressive championship, it always has been,” said Newgarden. “It’s something I would certainly like to do.

“I’d like to drive everything that I could to have the experience. Then I’d have more first-hand knowledge to really speak on it.”