The recently concluded NASCAR and IndyCar doubleheader at Phoenix was a stellar Team Penske show, as Josef Newgarden and Ryan Blaney claimed all the limelight. While Blaney won in one of his happy hunting grounds, it wasn’t quite the case for Newgarden. Despite this, the IndyCar star picked up a win, and now a Cup Series driver is interested in seeing him in a Cup Series.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s pick for NASCAR driver from IndyCar

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., the full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver with HYAK Motorsports, recently sat with @atylmedia for an interview, where he was asked about one IndyCar driver he would want to race in the Cup Series. Without any hesitation, Stenhouse Jr. named Newgarden and said:

“I mean, I like Joseph Newgarden a lot. We’ve worked it out together. We’ve done American Ninja Warrior together. So I think he is kind of your all-American kid that races IndyCar and ki*** it.”

Stenhouse Jr.’s appreciation comes after the IndyCar driver won the race on Saturday and started the week perfectly for Roger Penske’s team. Even though they did not race together or race under the same team, they shared common interests and often crossed paths in motorsports.

Besides appearing together at the fan-facing events for Q&A Sessions at the Trackside Live at Nashville Superspeedway, they competed on the television show American Ninja Warrior, featuring NASCAR and IndyCar drivers.

As a result, Josef Newgarden’s result in the IndyCar race at Phoenix may not have impressed Ricky Stenhouse Jr., but his overall talent as a racing driver certainly did. To name a few, Newgarden has back-to-back Indy 500 wins, which he claimed in 2023 and 2024.

In 2024, he also claimed the 24 Hours of Daytona victory and then won nine consecutive races in 2025. Josef Newgarden currently has 32 wins in IndyCar and is the winningest American driver in the series.

With that said, IndyCar drivers switching to NASCAR is not uncommon, as seen in the case of Tony Stewart, Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Juan Pablo Montoya, Danica Patrick, and Dario Franchitti, among many others.

While Josef Newgarden has yet to make up his mind if he wants to race in the Cup Series, it is Ricky Stenhouse Jr. who needs to worry about his stint coming into 2026.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. stays optimistic heading into 2026 after a winless 2025 season

Ahead of the Bowman Gray Stadium race at the beginning of the season, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. shed light on how he learned lessons in 2025 and was ready to implement them in 2026. Speaking about the race tracks, especially Las Vegas, he shared a detailed analysis of how he wants to approach each race this season.

“Las Vegas will kind of be that real and true mile and a half where we’ve raced well in the past. It’s a good stretch of races to start the season,” Stenhouse Jr. said as NASCAR is set to host the fifth race of the season.

Following this, he further added how HYAK Motorsports is ready for the challenge:

“We’ll give it everything we’ve got. I feel like we show up to the racetrack and we don’t feel like we’re an underdog. We don’t have that mentality. We’ve got the mentality of, we’ve got really good quality people. We’ve got good-quality cars. Our ownership group doesn’t hesitate to get us stuff that we need.”

The 2023 Daytona 500 winner won his last race, the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on October 6, 2024, and is going through a 65-race winless streak. Currently, he is in 27th place in the NASCAR standings with 64 points after four races. With that said, it will be interesting to see if the #47 driver can improve his journey this time around.