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The shared past of IndyCar's champion and its next big star

Josef Newgarden and Colton Herta are two of IndyCar's biggest stars, but both drivers once had dreams of making it in Europe before heading back to the States. Trevor Carlin, who ran both drivers in junior categories, talks about their early years...

We all know who makes up the IndyCar field: a bunch of very, very fast Europeans who came up through the ranks at home and, given the breaks, should or could have made it to Formula 1, a smattering of stars from Down Under, drivers who left F1 yet still have a top-line career ahead of them, and a pool of North Americans who worked their way up through the ladder system in the States.

But there's one more group.

When the IndyCar field lines up this Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway to get the season off to a belated start, two of the most under-the-spotlight drivers will be Team Penske's reigning and two-time champion Josef Newgarden, plus Colton Herta, a race winner as a star rookie in 2019 and now brought fully into the Andretti Autosport fold. Two Americans who, attracted by F1 rather than Indy, tried to make it in Europe.

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Author Marcus Simmons

Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.

Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.