ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Team Penske teammates Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin forged a viral off-track friendship after becoming teammates that they, along with business partner Brian Simpson, turned into the Bus Bros vlogging series and merchandise line.

As ‘Bus Bros’ took off, they combined to win nearly half IndyCar’s 17-race slate in 2022 – finishing 2nd (Newgarden) and 4th (McLaughlin) in the championship, trailing fellow Team Penske teammate Will Power.

But with McLaughlin hitting every benchmark Team Penske president Tim Cindric had set for the legendary V8 Supercars driver in his second season of full-time IndyCar competition in 2021, how would the two deal with the seemingly imminent championship rivalry?

Asked during a media scrum session Friday of the 2023 season-opening weekend, Newgarden had a witty response ready, brimming with his trademark sarcasm.

“I don’t know, I kinda want to break Scott’s leg at some point – just take a bat and get it over with, you know? Real aggressive,” said the driver, who would go onto win his first Indy 500 that year, along with three other races, but finish 5^th in the championship. McLaughlin would pace Team Penske in the title race in 3^rd. “Oh, I’d get fired immediately, but that’s why I just think it and don’t do it.”

Slowly, Newgarden’s lighthearted laughter began to dry up.

“But that’s a good question. We’ve not had a big moment yet, and I think it’s inevitable. We’re going to have a scrap at some point. It’s a hard balance,” he continued. “He’s probably the first teammate I’ve had that has understood the dynamic – like, I want to beat him terribly, and he feels the same about me, but we’re professional about it. He respects my craft, and I respect his. There’s no one I hold higher than Scott McLaughlin.

“I think it’s inevitable we have a scrap, and when that happens, I don’t know what the outcome is.”

The two escaped 2023 without any noted incidents on-track as their YouTube show reached 22 episodes, but in the midst of an extreme up-and-down year – Newgarden capping a four-win season with three finishes over the final four races outside the top-20 – the project reached a silent end in August. The media company Newgarden and Simpson had partnered on years ago – Dream Digital Services – was dissolved in the offseason. Simpson launched Stillhouse in December, maintaining his same client list, minus Newgarden.

In January, Newgarden was asked about the dissolution of his off-track endeavors, sending him into a long, introspective monologue about feeling “bogged down” and “refocusing” his priorities, and finding a level of “simplicity” in his life – to the level of unfollowing every single account on his social media platforms, so as to not be tempted to “mindlessly scroll” for 30 minutes at a time.

“In life, everything can become complicated. We can all become too busy or too clouded with ambitions,” he said. “And I think for me, that was probably true in some respects.”

Nearing the start of this season, multiple members in the paddock began to hint at a fracture between the Team Penske drivers – with one driver elsewhere in the series simply saying, “Either of them would give you a good quote. You’re not going to miss with either of them.”

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As a part of Roger Penske’s inner-circle and the president of four championship-caliber race teams in IndyCar, NASCAR, IMSA and WEC, Tim Cindric understands the need to eliminate even the smallest mindless distraction. The veteran IndyCar executive has been a curious – sometimes active – observer of Newgarden’s evolution as a driver, teammate, friend, husband and father.

In part of an exclusive sit-down Saturday with IndyStar in St. Pete, Cindric admitted, though, that Newgarden’s love-hate relationship with the clear-cut delineation of success and failure in this sport is not uncommon across Team Penske. There were times – up until late-May of last year – where Cindric would have to remind his charges that they had won the Greatest Spectacle in Racing just four years prior.

But Newgarden’s journey in recent years was truly unique. Having won championships in two of his first three seasons as a Team Penske driver, the ex-Ed Carpenter Racing driver would finish runner-up in the title race each of the next three years. No one in the history of the sport has strung together a longer such streak.

From 2020-23, he’d win 15 races, moving him within striking distance of IndyCar’s top-10 all-time. Sunday’s season-opening victory leaves him one shy of what’s presently a three-way tie for 10^th with Paul Tracy, Dario Franchitti and Helio Castroneves, and it broke a tie with all-time Penske great Rick Mears.

“But he’s let (the pressure) get to him sometimes. Sometimes, I have to say, ‘Hey, enjoy today, and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. You just won Iowa! Enjoy today, and we’ll worry about tomorrow for you,’” Cindric said of his two-time champion driver.

At the end of that grind a year ago, Newgarden sat 5^th in the championship – tied for his worst in his seven years with Penske – and realizes now he fell out of love with racing. His “perfectionist” mindset, as he described it, would leave him fixated far more on the weekends where he fell short than the ones where they throttled the field.

In the wake of the ecstasy of winning his first 500, Newgarden soon slipped back into the ‘win-or-bust’ mindset. Race weekends felt even more like work instead of a childhood dream realized. Very quickly, a demoralizing mental cycle sparked, where Newgarden would first find himself dealing with the letdowns of a weekend where he and his crew had fell short – and then the confusion of why his dream job had him feeling so drained.

“There’s no sustainability in my perfection,” he said Sunday after his 7.9-second victory. “I get hyper-fixated on just trying to maximize everything, and I think my mentality was, in a lot of ways, win or nothing.

“Even today it was creeping in. I’m not going away from my passion and my desire, but I’m trying to recenter my enjoyment in what I do. I’m getting back to the basics of loving that, and I really felt that today. I really had a good time, and it all worked out, too, so that makes it a little bit more enjoyable.”

The goal is to come away from an IndyCar weekend winless and still feel like there was something to be proud of. After all, the roadmap to IndyCar’s most recent season champs (Will Power in 2022 and Alex Palou in 2023) was a consistency of success, not racking up a lot of wins. They both compiled campaigns with at least 12 top-5s in 17-race seasons. Newgarden had 10 (2017) and 12 (2019) in his two Astor Cup-winning season. But he hasn’t reached double-digits since, often finding himself in late-season situations requiring near-miracles to contend for a title after too many early-season letdowns.

“I’m not saying I was doing a great job at everything but I think I was trying to, and I’ve had to tell myself, ‘It’s alright. It’s not going to be perfect.’" Newgarden said. "You’ve got to remove that expectation. Simply put, I just wanted to be happier again being at the track and enjoy the job and the process. And I do. I’ve let go of some of that perfectionism.”

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Where that leaves this ‘new Newgarden’ within the landscape of Team Penske isn’t immediately clear.

For what it’s worth, Cindric says he hasn’t had to address any concerns – real or suspected – about fragmentation inside his team.

“I think people talked about that in the beginning (with McLaughlin’ but (Josef) and Will have always gotten along, and Will has always been competitive. I think they welcome each other pushing each other,” Cindric said Saturday. “From the inside, I haven’t dealt with (friction) one second.

“I think this has more been about, Hey, this other stuff is fun, but I’ve got one driver simplifying his life, and another living his dream, coming to America, doing what he’s doing. He’s got dogs, but dogs are different than kids. I don’t see any friction there at all, honestly. But I can see why it would be a natural assumption.”

Having used the phrase “business relationship” multiple times in Sunday’s post-race presser to describe the three Team Penske drivers, McLaughlin was asked what this new, refocused Newgarden was like as a teammate.

Replied the New Zealander, rather curtly: “Doesn’t affect me.”

Later, IndyStar asked Newgarden if it was fair to say he and his one-time Bus Bro had morphed into a ‘business-like’ relationship.

“Yeah, that’s probably fair,” he said. “The stuff Scott and I were doing last year was great, and I love it. I still love it, and I look back on it with a big smile, but I would say all good things come to an end."

When a reporter noted his comments in jest from a year ago, Newgarden remembered them distinctly.

“I think this is all very natural, and I knew that from the beginning – probably more so than others, but that’s okay,” he continued. “We’re cool. We work really well together.

“But yeah, you pull the ‘Bus Bros’ out of it, and you’re not goofing off as much, and you’re just working on the professional side. I think that’s happening in a lot of ways, and for me, it’s an okay thing.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why Newgarden, McLaughlin went from Bus Bros to just Penske teammates