Ahead of the Indianapolis 500, there is a massive storm brewing. For the second year in a row, Team Penske has been caught up in a spot of trouble. This time around, two of their cars have been sent to the rear of the field after qualifying with illegal parts. Josef Newgarden and Will Power were found to have modified the rear attenuators of their car, and this was deemed to give the team an aerodynamic advantage. Roger Penske was shocked at these revelations and took some hard calls.
Penske came out and said, “Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams. We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes. I apologize to our fans, our partners, and our organization for letting them down.” This was followed by the firing of three key executives of the IndyCar fold. President, Tim Cindric, Managing Director, Ron Ruzewski, and General Manager, Kyle Moyer.
Obviously, this was a little ruthless from Roger Penske, but apparently some heads had to roll. Already, the two drivers, Josef Newgarden and Will Power, are feeling the effects of the punishment. Aside from relegation to the back of the grid, both of their team strategists have been suspended for this race. Additionally, they lost any points earned in qualifying, as well as pit box selections. To cap everything off, each entry copped a fine of $100,000
IndyCar president Doug Boles said, “We need our biggest stakeholders, the people that are investing in our sport, to believe that it’s a level playing field. And that they have every chance as anybody else does to win the Indianapolis 500, so we’re all singing from the same songbook. I think this is a clear indication, I hope, to the paddock that we take this seriously. That this is not something that we’re going to continue to allow to happen. We are going to make sure that the cars on the racetrack are evenly prepared.” However, the reason for Penske’s firing lies deeper than a mere attenuator modification in 2025; this all started during the IndyCar race at St Petersburg in 2024, where Team Penske committed an egregious violation.
Image Credits – Porsche Motorsports, X
It was at this race where the team tweaked their cars’ software in order to activate IndyCar’s Push to Pass boost. Push to Pass is used on non-oval tracks, and drivers are limited to between 150 and 200 seconds of extra power per race. As the name suggests, they can activate it to either overtake or defend. Roger Penske’s drivers illegally used this on restarts, giving them extra speed that other drivers did not have.
Josef Newgarden was deemed guilty of activating it in the season opener at St. Petersburg. Two months later, he was caught using it again at Long Beach, and that was when IndyCar decided to act. In response to that scandal, Team Penske suspended two of its senior-most employees. Coincidentally, those employees were Team Penske president Tim Cindric and managing director Ron Ruzewski.
Now it seems that Cindric has been made the fall guy yet again, only this time the consequences are more permanent. Surprisingly, a fair number of people were sympathetic towards Cindric’s plight.
Ousted president Tim Cindric found a fair number of fans on his side
Few people wondered whether Team Penske would be adversely affected by Cindric’s departure. One fan wrote on Reddit, “It’s really a shame because one only has to do a rudimentary search on Team Penske’s accomplishments post hiring Tim Cindric to find out what he has done for the organization. Said it in another post but this is like Chad Knaus being fired after winning all the championships for an L2 penalty.”
This fan’s displeasure is rooted in the fact that the modification did not even give Team Penske any competitive advantage. Colin Herta, driver for Andretti Global, spoke about how Penske’s push to pass was way more egregious than this one, which would not have allowed them to pass anyone. Herta said, “I’d imagine that would equate to the smallest margins of drag. It is still disappointing to see the team get caught up in something again, but sorry, this is way different than 50 extra horsepower, and I won’t be passed because of what they did.”
Some also believed that this move reeked of desperation, echoing Herta’s sentiments fan wrote, “Yes this is severe overreaction but after the push 2 pass issue last year which was way more severe than this and the fact that Roger has the optics challenge due to him owning the series, this is what happened. But this in a vacuum is like a football team committing pass interference and the other opposing team getting awarded 4 touchdowns. This was largely a cosmetic modification (maybe it scraped off a tiny tiny bit of drag), but there’s a lot of layers to this.”
Others called it out for what it was: “Translation, I’m the fall guy.” That being said, now that Cindric is a free agent, another fan speculated a switching of allegiances for Cindric: “If I had to bet, he’s gonna get hired elsewhere almost immediately. Assuming he still wants to continue in this line of work.” Some also speculated about his future at Penske itself, writing, “Buddy of mine that also follows IndyCar speculated that he’ll land somewhere else in Penske’s empire in due time. For now, I’d be shocked if these three weren’t on some kind of gardening leave to keep them off the market.”
Finally, one fan opined, “I personally think this “firing” is purely for show and Tim is fine, Austin will be fine, and nothing to worry about.” All in all, this situation was a bit of a mess, but now it remains to be seen how Team Penske moves forward and whether it will affect NASCAR, as Austin Cindric, Tim’s son, drives for Team Penske in the #12, and how happy would he be to ride for an owner who just fired his father?
Well, a lot of questions are popping up, and fans have picked their side. Only time will tell the future to Tim Cindric, Austin Cindric, and Team Penske as a whole. Do you think the firing was necessary? Let us know in the comments!
The post NASCAR Fans Claim “Overreaction” Amidst Roger Penske and Tim Cindric’s Shocking IndyCar Fallout appeared first on EssentiallySports.
