Newgarden, who finished fourth in the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series, tested at Elkhart Lake’s four-mile road course alongside team incumbents Simon Pagenaud, Will Power and Helio Castroneves – the only three drivers who finished ahead of him in the points table this year.

Afterward he told Motorsport.com: “First of all, it was nice to have the real-world experience instead of just talking about it! I loved it. I had a blast, just trying to take everything in and absorb the whole process here at Penske.

“[At Ed Carpenter Racing] I’ve been driving a car that I tailored and evolved in a certain direction over the last five years, since I started in IndyCar. So I really wanted to start today at the point where these guys have been and learn what worked for them.

“And yes, the car was a little different from what I was used to. The starting point was new to me in terms of where the car was at and the philosophy of how it needed to be driven. Helio [Castroneves] and Will [Power] have developed the car a certain way and then Simon [Pagenaud] has had his input in it.

“From a setup standpoint you can build this car in a lot of different ways – different rollcenters, spring packages and so on,” Newgarden explained, “and there’s a lot of different ways you can drive the car with the setup options you have available to you.

“So today I learned how my teammates drive the car and why they drive the car that way. Then there’s how I want to drive the car and how I can tailor it to me a little bit better. I had to go through that all day and it was a lot of fun, actually.”

“Fantastic” to have extra data streams

Newgarden said that after being the sole driver on a team for the first three years of his IndyCar career, and then having relatively inexperienced teammates alongside him on road and street courses for the next two, now having three fast and experienced teammates was an eye-opening experience.

“It’s fantastic to have four sets of data,” he said. “That’s probably one of the biggest areas where they’re so strong as a group. They have so much information to look at from quality drivers with great feedback.

“That can help the team accomplish a lot of things when they go to a test or over a race weekend. Whether it’s four cars focusing on experimenting with different aspects of the car, or all focusing on one thing but going in four different directions, you cover so much ground.

“And it’s the same with the race engineers – all four of them are really strong, and all have a great working relationship. The amount of information really strengthens the group. And nothing’s too much trouble; everyone’s happy to do whatever’s necessary. It’s been very refreshing – everyone has a positive attitude and it’s a really pleasant environment.”

Information exchange a two-way street

Newgarden says that he believes what he learned at Ed Carpenter Racing could also be useful to his new team in the same way that learning from the Penske drivers will help him.

“I haven’t relied much on other people to develop a road or street course car,” he remarked. “I could really develop it the way I liked it and have it doing what I like a car to do. That was somewhat different to what these guys like and there are some things that translate and other things that I’ve expressed I’d like to do.

“But that’s not a bad thing. It makes me learn, makes me see a different way to do things. And on the other hand, I think I’m showing them the way I’ve done things in the past. There will be areas where I learn things that will be beneficial with regard to how you run the car setup-wise and there will be other areas where maybe my knowledge will be very helpful and both sides can benefit and progress.

“We only had one day with a somewhat limited amount of tires so there’s a lot more work to be put in and a lot more progress will be made as a group.”

Frozen tech rules will speed up progress

IndyCar’s decision to freeze the aerokit designs for 2017, their final season, will help speed up Newgarden’s adaptation to his new environment, he believes. As replacement for Juan Pablo Montoya, the 25-year-old has continued with the Colombian’s race engineer Brian Campe, who in 2015 helped guide JPM to Indy 500 glory and runner-up in the championship.

Said Newgarden: “Yeah, the rules freeze I think will shorten the learning curve, because having fewer variables means it’s more about fine-tuning your choices with the aerokits at this stage.

“And remember Brian’s got a learning curve to figure me out, too – what my strengths and weaknesses are, what my driving style is, and even just my verbiage in terms of feedback. When you change teams, these are things that you go through, and it takes time to build that relationship and really have a strong toolset to draw from.

“And there’s not really a way to speed that up. You’ve got to spend more time together at the track … And the downside of the rules freeze is that IndyCar have really cut down on off-season testing.

“So there will probably still be some weekends where we don’t optimize everything quick enough because we’re still trying to learn each other. But we’ll try to perfect that process sooner rather than later.”

Newgarden will continue testing on Thursday, as Penske’s sole representative at the Gateway 1.25-mile oval, in Madison, Ill., where IndyCar will race next season for the first time since 2003.

“It’s a good opportunity to get some data for the whole team and see what these cars want at that track,” said Newgarden. “I’m really grateful to the team for allowing me to do the test and to get some more miles and familiarity with the whole group.”