In the wake of a scandal that resulted in Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden being disqualified from his race win and Scott McLaughlin to be disqualified from his third place finish to open the IndyCar racing season on March 10, owner Roger Penske has suspended four Team Penske employees for the next two IndyCar races which includes the iconic running of the Indianapolis 500.
Newgarden’s disqualification gave the win to Pato O’Ward.
Most notably among those suspended is Team Penske president Tim Cindric. A familiar name in racing circles, Tim Cindric is the father of NASCAR Cup Series driver Austin Cindric who drives the Team Penske number two car.
Other suspended Team Penske were managing director Ron Ruzewski, Newgarden engineer Luke Mason, and senior data engineer Robbie Atkinson. Penske said that Tim Cindric and Ruzewski accepted responsibility for the mishap.
Via a statement Tim Cindric said, “for Ron and I as leaders of this team, it’s not about what we did, it’s about what we didn’t do. It is our responsibility to provide the team and all our drivers with the right processes to ensure something like this can’t happen. For that, I apologize to Roger, our team and everyone that supports us. Our number one job is to protect and enhance the reputation of our brand and that of those that support us.”
He added, “in that regard, as the overall leader, I failed, and I must raise my hand and be accountable with the others. This is a team, and in my position, it’s the right thing to do.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Penske noted that the investigation “found no malicious intent by anyone and chalked up the incident as a breakdown in internal processes and miscommunication.”
As for Josef Newgarden, Penske said that he remained committed to the driver and is in the process of trying to sign Newgarden to a contract extension.
Penske added, “we’re the same company we have been for 50 years and I’m going to hold my head high. This is an unfortunate situation and when you’re the leader, you have to take action. We’ve done that and we’re going to move on. I am not trying to run a popularity contest.”
The incident arose when it was discovered several weeks after the March 10 race that Team Penske was using some software that allowed them to increase horsepower, which is a rules violation.
IndyCars have a function called “push to pass” which gives them a boost in power for passing on the course. IndyCar disables the function on race starts and restarts but, on this occasion, it was discovered that the function did not disable in three of the Team Penske cars – Will power’s car was not involved. Josef Newgarden admitted to taking advantage of the situation of three separate occasions. He stated that he thought the rules had been changed and using the function was now legal.
Scott McLaughlin admitted to using the function but said he gained no advantage from its use.
The software had been left over from a car test last year and was never removed from the cars.
IndyCar has fined each driver $25,000 and docked them 10 driver points in the driver standings. For Newgarden and McLaughlin, the points loss is much bigger because with their disqualifications, they also loose whatever points they would have earned from the race.