What Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward said about each other after final lap Indy 500 finish

INDIANAPOLIS – The end of the 108th Indianapolis 500 became a two-driver battle between Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward.

The two drivers exchanged the lead four times on the final six laps, but it was Newgarden’s No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet that passed O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet in Turn 3 of the 200th and final lap for the victory. For Newgarden, it was his second Indy 500 win in a row. For O’Ward, it was his second second-place finish in three years.

Sunday marked the sixth IndyCar race that Newgarden won while O’Ward was second, while it’s happened only twice the other way around. After one of the most exhilarating finishes in Indy 500 history, here’s what the top two finishers had to say about each other:

Newgarden on O’Ward

>> On the final lap pass: “Hard to know if it’s going to work. I don’t think it works unless you’re racing someone like Pato. It’s not that Pato didn’t race me hard, he just raced me clean. That move doesn’t work unless you’re racing someone like that, it just doesn’t. It's very easy that that doesn't work out. And so I think he's a tremendous champion.

“He could have easily won the race himself, he was very capable of that with his team. For us, it worked out, he drove me excellently. I’m very thankful for him and the way that he drove.”

>> On what he’d tell O’Ward: “I would echo what I've just already said, he's a champion. He's one of the best competitors we have in this field. He's a really nice guy. Every time I talk to Pato, we have great conversations. We have a lot of respect for each other, so I’m appreciative for the way that he drives. He drove like a champion in this race, and he’s just as deserving of a winner in my opinion. He definitely could have won this race.

“So it’s tough to not win it, I can’t say anything to ease that for him. When you don’t win, it hurts. And I’ve left here 11 times prior with a broken heart, so I know the feeling. Whether you’re close or you’re far, it’s a broken heart. So I can’t ease that but he’s a champion, I think he knows it, and I definitely have a lot of respect for him.”

O’Ward on Newgarden

>> On the final lap pass: “I think Joseph is a great competitor. I’ve raced wheel-to-wheel with him so many times. And he's obviously one of the one of the stars of this series — one of the strong ones — and we knew he was going to be a fighter to the end.”

>> On finishing top-two with Newgarden again: “I was glad that I was racing somebody that I can trust, and somebody that I think is a fantastic competitor, and he’s in a fantastic team. So for us, I think it’s a privilege to really make them sweat, and I think we certainly did today. Just a couple seconds short.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward speak following Indy 500 finish