Josef Newgarden will be forever considered one of American motor racing’s greats after clinching his first Indianapolis 500 win.
It’s not a one-man effort though. Behind every driver is a dedicated team pushing to put their car in victory lane.
Among this year’s Indianapolis 500-winning team is a little-known Australian, Luke Mason.
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The name isn’t one which would move the needle for Joe Bloggs but has a bit of history in Australian motorsport.
Mason was a staple of the Supercars paddock in the early 2010s as a data engineer with the iconic Stone Brothers Racing.
He remained at the team through its ownership change, the team becoming Erebus Motorsport in 2013 where he engineered two-time Bathurst 1000 winner Will Davison.
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A move to the United States came in the mid-2010s where he worked in NASCAR with Richard Childress Racing before moving to single-seaters in the early-2020s.
After a stint with Carlin, he joined Team Penske this year – arguably the most iconic team in North American motorsport.
Incredibly, Mason’s win with Newgarden came in just his sixth race as the American’s race engineer.
“You spend your whole life working towards achieving this one goal, and having done it now, I’m speechless,” Mason told Racer.
“It’s such a good crew, this group of people; not just the No.2 car (Newgarden) or the No.3 (Scott McLaughlin) or the No. 12 (Will Power), but the whole crew.
“Everyone back at the shop; it’s been a big goal. It’s no secret that we haven’t done well enough here at the Speedway.
“Coming into this year after a championship victory last year, it was priority number one to get Roger’s 19th win.”
As far as an engineer’s job goes, Mason’s job couldn’t have been much easier.
He said the team didn’t spend any time chasing car set-up and didn’t adjust the front wing or change tyre pressures all race long.
“We kept asking Josef if he wanted changes and were trying to make sure that we were in the right window for the shootout at the end and he kept saying everything was fine, so we just didn’t touch it all day,” he explained.
“The plan going in was to be the best on pit road. We got the best driver in the car, so every stop, we’d pick up two or three spots and then another two or three spots. We were ahead of schedule by halfway.
“Pretty happy with that. And obviously we’ve got to be fair; there’s a lot of good cars that got taken out in various situations.
“At the same time, we’ve got to capitalise and we knew that if we put him in a position to go drive and steal this victory, he was going to do it.
“He’s Josef Newgarden, and that’s what he does best.”
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