Long Beach Grand Prix winner Josef Newgarden described how a “bizarre question” in a press conference spurred him on to beat pole-winner Colton Herta to victory last weekend.
The Penske driver took his first victory at the Californian street track on Sunday after early leader Herta crashed out
“The funniest bit about this whole weekend,” Newgarden recalled, “was when I left this press conference after qualifying, there was some dude from the LA Times and he came up to me right before I hit the stairs and he goes: ‘Josef, one question at what point does Colton Herta check out tomorrow?’”
“I thought it was just such a bizarre question. I went to bed last night, and I go, ‘You know what? That kid is not checking out tomorrow. There’s no way. He’s just not going to do it after I heard this from this person.’ And he didn’t.”
Newgarden said he ordinarily tries not to respond to negative comments from others. “There’s obviously athletes we can look at over the…