Roger Penske’s journey to the top of the motorsports mountain is one to be admired. The Team Penske owner started his journey as a racing driver, but his heart was in being a team owner. He retired in 1965 and started a Philadelphia Corvette dealership. They started by fielding Corvettes in endurance races at Daytona and the 12 hours of Sebring. In 1966, he started Penske racing, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Now, in 2025, Penske has not let any title-winning opportunity slip from his grasp. From three consecutive championships in NASCAR since 2022 to winning 2 Indy 500s, 2 Rolex 24 races, the 2024 IMSA GTP championship, and the 2024 WEC championship over the last two years, nobody can stop them. Now, in 2025, they added another jewel to their crown, building off their recent successes.
Roger Penske has built a motorsports empire
In 1972, Team Penske clinched its first Indy 500 win, thanks to Mark Donohue. Since then, the organization has gone on to seize 20 Indy 500 triumphs, and the last two came in 2023 and 2024. The driver who won those races was none other than Josef Newgarden, capping off an excellent two years for Team Penske. Their most recent triumph, though, came at the 12 hours of Sebring, as the Porsche-Penske #7 team ended up as overall winners.
“It was a team effort, and all the drivers were on their game today,” Roger Penske reflected in conversation with NBC Sports. “The Porsche 963 was outstanding. You could see it just got better and better as the weather got cooler. Smart work in the pits, good job, no issues there. Coming in 1-2 here after it’s been a long time since we won this race. Just an amazing day.”
Indeed, it has been a long time coming. Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas, and Emmanuel Collard led Penske Racing to the 12 Hours of Sebring championship back in 2008. A 17-year wait for Penske to reclaim its dominance, and it couldn’t have come at a better time, as this win only emphasizes their dominance across all forms of motorsport.
Add the 12 Hours of Sebring to this list after the Penske-Porsche No. 7 team takes the overall win. https://t.co/4rDFMAEyOr
— Jordan Bianchi (@Jordan_Bianchi) March 16, 2025
In the NASCAR arena, the team made its debut in 1972 and has won five titles since then. Once again, the last two came in 2023 and 2024, courtesy of Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, respectively. Logano has won two more titles, while the fifth Team Penske championship belongs to Brad Keselowski in 2012, when Dodge was their OEM.
Finally, in the 2024 and 2025 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, the Porsche Penske team stamped their authority as usual. The winning drivers were Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr, and Josef Newgarden in 2024. A year later, Nasr repeated the feat, this time with Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor. Tema Penske has certainly cracked the code to building winning teams across sports.
The Team Penske owner is a big fish in the American motorsport scene
What’s actually interesting is that Roger Penske not only founded and owned his own team, but he is multi-faceted. As a matter of fact, he is the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which hosts the Indy 500 and Brickyard 400. Admittedly, the iconic oval is only a recent acquisition, as Penske Entertainment Group bought it in 2019 from Hulman and Company.
At the same time, Roger Penske also acquired the rights to IndyCar. Both the speedway and the series had been owned by Hulman and Company for 74 years. Of course, to maintain a sense of integrity, Roger Penske stepped away from IndyCar operations as a strategist. Roger Penske said after acquiring the IndyCar series in 2019, “I understand the integrity. To me, I know what my job is. Hopefully, I have enough credibility to ensure that there is not a lot of conflict. I’ve got a lot of guys watching me.” This was done to avoid accusations of potentially favoring his team, though his standing in his NASCAR team was not too badly affected.
For now, Roger Penske is looking ahead to the ongoing motorsport season. He will be hoping to wrap up three different championships for the 2025 season. However, their season isn’t off to the greatest start in NASCAR. They are yet to pick up a win in 5 races, and their best finish was Ryan Blaney’s fourth place at Atlanta, followed by Austin Cindric’s 6th place at Las Vegas. What is even more concerning is that their technical alliance team, Wood Brothers Racing, was able to secure a win before them, with Josh Berry notching up his first-ever Cup Series win in their most recent outing in Las Vegas.
Team Penske has no shortage of rivals in the NASCAR Cup Series, NTT IndyCar Series and the IMSA SportsCar Series, and in the World Endurance Championship. However, he would want to keep his dominance going in all series, and so far, NASCAR isn’t going in the right direction. What do you think? Are Team Penske’s early season blues just part of a ‘championship hangover’? Let us know in the comments below!
The post Roger Penske Adds to His Motorsport Legacy With Another Feather in His Cap appeared first on EssentiallySports.
