Explaining Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward: The 2024 Indy 500 and the FOX Commercial

Indy 500 2024

Last week, FOX Sports released a commercial about IndyCar’s 2026 season, in an intimidating and strong message about the power of racing in the category. During this commercial, you can see a couple of pictures of Pato O’Ward upset after a race. May people wondered what happened between the two drivers, and that’s what we’ll be talking about today.

The commercial, for starters, is a great way to communicate about Josef’s and IndyCar’s intensity and fierceness. In the movie, we can see the driver having a great and perfect life in his house, hosting a barbecue with his friends, where it’s claimed that he has the “perfect life”. The commercial changes its tone when the narrator says “once, he ripped a man’s heart out”, cutting to two pictures of the Mexican driver appearing sad after a race. After that, the narrator follows saying that it’s better to meet Newgarden off track, where he’s nice and kind, than to meet him on track, where he’s fierce and intense. But what happened to Pato and why does it relate to Josef?

The answer is simple: the 2024 edition of the Indy 500. In that iconic and historic race, O’Ward led for many laps, showing consistency and smoothness on track for the biggest part of the race. After 200 laps and 805 kilometers around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Mexican driver was overtaken by Josef Newgarden, who proceeded to win the 108^th edition of the Indy 500.

This result has been controversial among the category’s fans. Pato’s fans were left with a bittersweet feeling, something between being proud of his performance on track and frustration for being so close but not achieving the win. Meanwhile, the fans that were present on track and witnessing the moment were almost unanimous against Newgarden, that was coming from controversial moments and was driving for Penske at the time.

With this win, Josef Newgarden achieved something rare: for the first time in 22 years, a driver has won the Indy 500 back-to-back. He has also achieved Team Penske’s 20^th win in this race, setting a record in the sport. For Pato O’WARD, the repercussions were positive, even though the win slipped through his fingers in the last minutes: his performance consolidated him even more as the fan’s favorite and the most popular among all motorsports fans. Besides that, he consolidated himself as one of the biggest names in IndyCar, receiving compliments from Zak Brown, McLaren’s CEO, and many other legends of the sport, being a great mark in his career.

This rivalry on track has become one of the highs in IndyCar in the last few years, with both drivers showing great talent and competition, specially on the Indy 500. We should expect even more twists and action on the 110^th edition of the Indy 500, which will happen on Sunday, March 24^th.

Written by Kauany Gouveia