Why IndyCar has the posterboy F1 wants

IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden looked down and out seven years ago after a "dismal" GP3 season took up all his funds and left him on the brink of quitting motorsport. Oddly, it was the turning point that led to a Penske title. Now there's talk of Formula 1 to contend with.

It speaks volumes of his career trajectory that his visit to Austin for the 2017 US GP prompted F1 rumours just as the Toro Rosso driver merry-go-round was picking up pace. For his part, Newgarden said attending the grand prix revitalised his love of F1, but that the links were speculation.

"I don't even know that I was in consideration there, it is very hard for me to tell," he says. "If I was, I was not informed by them, I can tell you that. I was informed by the media that I was under consideration. I'm not sure how serious that was or wasn't."

Asked whether it would be worth leaving one of the world's most famous and successful teams for a chance at F1 with a mid-tier or backmarker team, Newgarden's response was telling. "Yes, it is an interesting question," he pauses.

"Being with Team Penske, first and foremost my contract is with the team, my loyalty is with them and that is my only interest. But would I be interested in doing something in F1 in the future? Yeah, absolutely. If the right opportunity presented itself."

But should he make that move away to F1? It's almost worth being decided by a coin flip. Newgarden is operating at the highest level with America's most successful team, which boasts 16 Indianapolis 500 wins and 15 IndyCar titles. Newgarden's first championship was also the third in four years for a Penske driver.

Yes, IndyCar will have a reset year with its new aerokit and is likely to shake up the order initially, but as we see in F1, the teams with the best resources rarely fail to get back to the top. Newgarden is still only 27, with Will Power and Simon Pagenaud in their mid-thirties. If the American is patient, he can quickly become the leading Penske driver with over a decade at the top to win more titles.

That all falls against the backdrop of IndyCar's resurgence, and that's not just the benefit of one of the world's best drivers in Fernando Alonso racing at the Indy 500. The championship's clear strategy to lower costs and improve racing has yielded a 2018 car the drivers enjoy and is expected to produce closer racing. New teams like Carlin bolster the field and while a bid to go slightly more international faltered with Mexico's delays, it increasingly seems a case of 'when', not 'if'. In short: IndyCar's in rude health and Newgarden can easily become the face of it.

That's overwhelmingly tantalising, but then there's the allure of F1, which could also do with an American leading light. With F1's new ownership intent on expanding its American influence and with a desire to draw on America's sporting cornerstone in the Super Bowl, it will not have a better chance than with Newgarden. Eloquent, media-savvy, intelligent and crucially, a huge talent, the prospect of Newgarden in F1 is tantalising.

"I'm not saying that Josef would not be successful, but you cannot just jump in. After three races if you don't deliver, you know what you are - an idiot, and you need to leave" Haas F1 boss Gunther Steiner

It's tempting and has probably crossed his mind, but Haas team boss Gunther Steiner recently touched on the main worry behind a Newgarden move. There hasn't been a truly successful American F1 driver since Mario Andretti, and the list of others stretches as far as Dan Gurney, Richie Ginther and Phil Hill. If you exclude the anomalous points-paying Indianapolis 500s of 1950-60, as it bolstered the number of American drivers 'in' F1, only 19 have competed in more than 10 grands prix.

History may not be the barometer on how successful Newgarden will be, but America's F1 legacy in the modern day is one of scepticism after the dismal spell of Scott Speed and the acrimonious tenure of Michael Andretti at McLaren. That cannot be overlooked.

As Steiner says: "An American driver would be great, but he needs to be successful. I'm not saying that Josef would not be successful, but you cannot just jump in. The pressure here is tremendous. After three races if you don't deliver, you know what you are - an idiot, and you need to leave."

That sort of pressure does not just extend to American drivers, but any who have been successful in America's top single-seater championship. Sebastien Bourdais, the four-time CART champion is the most recent relevant case, having driven for Toro Rosso in 2008 and '09 with a disappointing spell ending up in a legal battle with the team. The Frenchman was put under the microscope as he struggled to come to terms with a young Sebastian Vettel, more ammunition against the level of American racing to F1's high standards.

Like Steiner, Bourdais believes Newgarden is capable, but says that so many small factors add up to make it impossible to predict how a transition would go.

"He's definitely got the talent, he's shown that through his career, he's raced in Europe too so knows a bit about it," says Bourdais. "It just depends on what your qualities are and where your strengths or weaknesses stand."

He also uses himself as an example, suggesting that F1's manufacturer and customer team hierarchy only makes a transition more difficult.

"I am a bit of an oddball in the racing where I tend to need cars to be a certain way, and sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't," he says. "The situation at Toro Rosso was very particular because we were not developing our own car, so we were given a car which was mostly developed for a Renault engine [at Red Bull] and we had a Ferrari."

It's easy to assess Bourdais, having seen him dominate in a weaker era of CART, struggle in F1 and then go back to America for a largely mixed spell. But predicting Newgarden's fortunes if he was to follow a similar route is harder.

He was forced off the traditional F1 feeder series route after a torrid GP3 season in the series' maiden year. But it would be harsh to draw too much from it, as he had only one year's experience in single-seaters, a close defeat in the British Formula Ford championship in 2009.

"It was kind of an odd journey," he says. "When I did the Formula Ford Festival, that was a step-way for British Formula Ford for 2009, and that was a great year. After that season, I really wanted to go into British Formula 3. I thought we had found an investor that wanted to do the best for my career and was pumped for an F3 season. It ended up being a flake that was going to invest and then it was really late in the early season and I didn't have a ride or anything."

"I actually thought my racing career was over after winning Indy Lights. It was kind of like our last shot at that level of racing" Josef Newgarden

An olive branch from Trevor Carlin got him a GP3 drive with his team, but having never driven a winged car and with GP3's lack of testing, he never gelled. A run of three points finishes in six races - including fifth at Monza - showed Newgarden was developing, but having spent the rest of his money on the 2010 season it looked as though his career was over.

"Being honest about it, it was dismal," he says. "The way Europe works is that you get one shot sometimes; [if] something like that goes against you, it can be difficult to recover."

Instead, two years later he was on the IndyCar grid, to begin his climb to the top. Sam Schmidt and his Indy Lights team gambled on him - Schmidt paid for the ride and the car went uninsured - and he dominated the 2011 Lights season.

"I actually thought my racing career was over at that point," he says. "All the money that we had left was spent on that season in 2010. It wasn't like it was all riding on that [2011] season, but it was kind of like our last shot at that level of racing.

Sarah Fisher took notice of Newgarden's "last shot" season and signed him to her new IndyCar team for 2012. It would begin a five-year spell in which the future champion would demonstrate all the abilities he would need for an F1 switch.

First, there were the underdog capabilities. Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing almost missed the season's start, having failed to sign an engine deal. Like Schmidt before, Newgarden was saved by generosity. This time, Rahal Lanigan Letterman Racing's failed second car deal left a spare Honda engine supply, which fell to Fisher.

Newgarden made the most of that chance, and took 11th on his series debut at St Petersburg. It was that season's only highlight, but it showed he was ready for the big time. Further evidence came in 2013 and 2014 with two podiums. His first at Baltimore could easily have been a win: he was hunting down leader Pagenaud before overheating brakes denied him.

"We were actually ready to win a race," reflects Newgarden. "I don't think from a team standpoint we were ready, but I felt ready."

A merger with Ed Carpenter Racing for 2015 created a new-look team in which Newgarden became established in the midfield and proved to be the best driver outside of Penske.

The first win came at Barber having held off IndyCar's leading light in Scott Dixon, and Graham Rahal. A second win that year meant Penske and Ganassi links started to emerge.

"No-one was ready at that point," he says. "There was a lot of doubt on my skillsets or my ability from those groups, or at least it seemed that way and so for me, it was easy to stay at what was going to be ECR only for 2016 because that had become my comfort zone, my comfort spot."

There were to be no doubts in his final year in the midfield, winning at the Iowa oval. It was impressive not just because he had won at an Andretti stronghold, but because he was racing a month after surgery from a huge crash at Texas's oval in which he broke his right shoulder and hand. He led a series record 282 laps of 300 at Iowa, driving with only his left hand.

"I couldn't really use my right hand, so I was really just pulling with my left and around a track like Iowa, that is just the worst-case scenario, not to have your two hands to use," he said.

It was no surprise that Penske swooped, with Newgarden realising there was serious interest that weekend. The timing was right.

"If I was just going to walk into a Team Penske car in my very first season, I don't know if I would have developed the skills that I have now," he says. "I really don't think that I would have and I'm actually quite thankful for those three years as well."

Making the most of a chance at the top tier, excelling in midfield machinery and then timing a move to a top team perfectly - Newgarden's been there, done that, and it would likely be the same task all over again in F1.

Having reached the highs of winning the IndyCar title with Penske, Newgarden is America's best current hope of a successful F1 driver - but it would be a huge roll of the dice to throw everything he's worked for away simply to satisfy an F1 curiosity.