INDIANAPOLIS -- It was quite a week for Roger Penske's IndyCar team.
Last Tuesday evening, the majority of Team Penske was at the Hilbert Circle Theater in Indianapolis as Simon Pagenaud, Will Power and Helio Castroneves were presented trophies and checks to celebrate their 1-2-3 sweep of the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series championship.
Barely 12 hours later, the driver who finished fourth in the standings was announced as the newest Penske team member. After an impressive five-year apprenticeship under Sarah Fisher and Ed Carpenter, 25-year-old Josef Newgarden is now part of the "The Captain's" juggernaut.
"We figured he was better off being on our side than on the other side," quipped Team Penske president Tim Cindric.
On the surface, this looks like a classic case of the rich getting richer. Penske dominated the 2016 season, with Pagenaud, Power, Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya combining for 10 wins and 11 poles in 16 races.
Newgarden was one of the few drivers who challenged or beat Penske's experienced quartet on a regular basis, and he did it with what is often perceived as one of the IndyCar Series' smaller teams.
The way the young Tennessee native built Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing into a contender and Ed Carpenter Racing into a winner was what caught Penske's eye. Newgarden is the complete package -- smooth and fast when he's in the car, and media, fan and sponsor savvy when he's not.
"He's shown me he's a winner and he's shown me he can handle himself on the racetrack and off the racetrack," said Cindric, who has been Roger Penske's top racing lieutenant since 2000. "That's really the core ingredient for us, because our environment is not for everybody.
"We want people that can drive race cars and represent our organization and those that we represent in the right way. It felt like he fit that mold."
With Newgarden's contract with ECR coming to an end, it's no surprise that he attracted a lot of attention in the free-agent market. But going to Penske wasn't always a certainty.
Since Kevin Cogan's star-crossed 1982 campaign, Roger Penske has been reticent about hiring young drivers. The few exceptions have included Helio Castroneves (24 when he started with the team in 2000), Sam Hornish Jr. (25 in 2006), and on the NASCAR side, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano.
Now Penske's IndyCar team is trending younger, with Newgarden taking over the No. 2 car from 41-year-old Montoya. Castroneves turns 41 in December, while Power is 35 and newly-crowned champion Pagenaud is 32.
Penske didn't necessarily want to replace Montoya, and has in fact offered the experienced Colombian an Indianapolis 500 seat with the potential of a yet-to-be-announced sports car program as well. But like two years ago, when Pagenaud became available, Penske and Cindric felt they had to act quickly.
"You have to decide if you're going to make a place for somebody like that, or if you're going to race against him for a while," Cindric said. "As we look at it, we wanted somebody that we could build on for the future."
Newgarden is set to make his first run in a Penske car Monday at Road America. The team will run all four drivers in a test scheduled long before Penske decided on a driver switch.
"I think he's a really good fit for Penske," commented new teammate Power. "Obviously he's very well spoken, he's American and the main thing is he is fast. I think it will be very good for the team.
"Testing is actually very restricted, so I think it will be great for him to get to know these guys because that's important," he added. "From a team perspective, it's really the only test we get to do until February or something just before the first race. So it's a very important day."
Team Penske's association with Pagenaud has certainly worked out well. After a mildly disappointing 2015 campaign in which he learned and adapted to the Penske environment, Pagenaud was the class of the IndyCar Series field in 2016, claiming five race wins and seven poles.
Even though he quickly emerged as a team leader, Pagenaud did it without incurring the wrath of his older teammates. His humility as the IndyCar Series titlist was reflected in his remarks at Tuesday night's championship celebration.
"It looked easy this year but it definitely wasn't," he said. "It's been a long road, but it was worth it. My story is of many challenges and goals impossible to reach. My family owned a supermarket in a small farming town ... how could I get to here?
"When I came to the U.S. in 2006, that was the key point of my career," he added. "I spoke barely any English, and I told my dad 'I have to win, because there is no point to keep going if I'm not good enough for this.' Otherwise I'm back in the supermarket once again."
Pagenaud won the 2006 Formula Atlantic championship with a $2 million prize package that put him in the Champ Car sanctioned IndyCar series in 2007. But Champ Car folded at the end of the year, sending the Frenchman into an unexpected four-year detour in sports cars.
It turned out to be a blessing. Pagenaud was tutored by Gil de Ferran, who won two IndyCar championships and an Indianapolis 500 for Team Penske. It was de Ferran who pointed Penske and Cindric in Pagenaud's direction.
A series of IndyCar Series race wins for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports convinced Penske that Pagenaud was ready. The Frenchman's early adoption of black slacks and fashionable loafers didn't hurt his cause either.
"Everybody at SPM was like, 'Why are you wearing black slacks? Just relax and put your jeans on!'" he related. "I said, 'You know, I'm trying to be professional.' But in reality, I was hoping Roger might notice me.
"It must have worked."
Now Newgarden must adapt to the traditional Penske black slacks dress code. But it shouldn't be a problem, because he's certainly given every indication that he is Penske material up to now.
"As a still relatively young guy in the sport, it's an amazing opportunity," Newgarden said. "I think it's a great place where I can learn new experiences, try and grow as a driver, and kind of open up my whole role within the group and try and just become better within the sport.
"I hope it pushes me to a new level," he added. "I'm probably going to figure some things out about myself I didn't know and hopefully those are good things; the bad things, I'll try and fix them pretty quick.
"But I think it's going to be a great change."