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Team Penske has fired several key officials just days after two of the team’s cars were sent to the back of the 2025 Indianapolis 500 starting grid over mechanical violations.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the team announced that president Tim Cindric, managing director Ron Ruzewski and general manager Kyle Moyer had departed after two years of “organizational failures.”
“Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams,” owner Roger Penske said in a written statement.
Officials announced Monday that cars driven by Will Power and two-time winner Josef Newgarden would be moved to the back of the grid following the Sunday pre-qualifications discovery of car modifications presumably meant to give aerodynamic advantage.
The rear attenuator is a safety device designed to absorb and reduce the force of impacts. It is a spec part that is not allowed to be modified. Team Penske apparently filled a seam to close off airflow over the attenuator in an attempt to reduce drag — which could potentially improve straight-line speed.
At the time, Cindric said Power passed inspection but officials flagged Newgarden’s car. He also said the modification was not on fellow team driver Scott McLaughlin’s car.
“It was a bit of randomness internally there that we need to sort out,” Cindric said.
After the violation was discovered, IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles initially said Newgarden and Power would join McLaughlin in starting on the fourth row of the race. But after the series gathered more facts, Newgarden and Power were penalized to the rear of the field.
“The penalty should be more than simply starting where the cars might have qualified anyway, if given the opportunity,” Boles said in a Monday news conference. “The cars belong in the field as two of the fastest 33, however, starting on the tail of the field is the appropriate penalty in this instance.”
On top of the back-of-grid repositioning, both were fined $100,000 and forfeited their qualification points and pit box selections.
A year ago, Team Penske was caught in a push-to-pass scandal in which Newgarden was found to have access to the additional boost of horsepower when he should not have. He was stripped of his season-opening victory and Penske suspended Cindric for two races, which included the Indy 500.
Penske also owns IndyCar, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500, which he has won a record 20 times.
Read Team Penske’s full statement below:
Team Penske statement and Roger Penske quote on Team Penske INDYCAR personnel changes: pic.twitter.com/EmzWY7YUnX
— Team Penske (@Team_Penske) May 21, 2025
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Now take away the 2024 win which had the same modification. Pato was there without the cheat.
Agree if true but that car was in subsequent races so they can’t prove if the modification happened before or after the 500.
Power and Newgarden should be DQ’d from this year’s race. QED.
You failed to provide any logic for your statement. “QED”…is that supposed to be a mic drop? LOL.
Google it
Rationale – they cheated and shouldn’t be able to compete. How hard is that to grasp?
I know what QED stands for and actually means….its just hilarious you using it to try and make yourself seem educated.
Don’t mess with The Captain. You have to appreciate his sense of accountability. No excuses. No explanations. Just fire those responsible and move on.
Sure, wouldn’t you love to work for such a boss!?! No excuses …”Off with their heads”!
I’d be more impressed if Penske held himself accountable. After all, it’s his team.
It’s not clear at all that filling that seam violated the rulebook. The rulebook states that safety devices, like the attenuator, can’t be modified. Does filling the seam where the attenuator fits constitute modifying the attenuator, itself? It’s not clear. The teams are allowed to fill other seams in a car’s bodywork with sealer. But apparently not this seam because it adjoins the attenuator?! This is why Power’s car initially passed tech, because not even the tech officials were certain how to interpret or enforce this rule? Furthermore, it’s all about naval-picking nonsense! To think that a race that once encouraged innovation now enforces spec rules down to this microscopic level of triviality — it’s utterly ridiculous! Next, Indycar will be dictating where decals can be placed on the car, for fear that variation in placement might create some minute aero advantage! Yet, Penske fires 3 good men just so he can deflect public criticism from an ignorant media and self-interested competitors.
Easy to sit here and interpret the inner workings of a massive organization and assume many things….especially intent. If they knowingly broke the rules, their departure is justified IMO. One still doesn’t know, nor will we ever, the whole story behind the Hybrid issue from last year and the #2 Car. And Roger is absolutely holding himself accountable bc these are 3 of the best at what they do and will likely have a massive impact on the results at the 500 for the Penske team as a whole, not to mention the rest of the season and the future of the organization. Don’t worry, those 3 will likely find jobs quickly…and if they don’t, then maybe there are some untold ethical issues and this was just the final straw(s)?!?
The rule states what modifications can be made to the car. The sub-rule then specifies that any modification besides what is stated to be allowed is not allowed. Based on that, making ANY changes to the attenuator is NOT allowed.
It was clear they unitized those assembly components which is a direct violation of the rules. There is a mechanical rigidity and aerodynamic advantage. That is cheating.
By “unitizing”, you mean the joining seam was filled with sealer, exactly as is done in every other seam on the body of the car. The rulebook is not clear on whether this is a violation, unless you assume that the using the seam sealer in this joint amounts to modifying the attenuator. When I seal gaps between the window frame and brick surround on my house, am I “modifying” the window frame, the house, both, or neither? This is why Power’s car initially passed tech, because whether sealer can be used in this joint is a grey area in the rules. There are always grey areas in rulebooks, especially in racing regs. And the unwritten rule in racing has always been, take the grey. And if the tech inspectors disagree with your interpretation, you fix it and maybe you get a slap on the wrist. I suspect that’s what would have happened, here, had any other team done this. But instead, we get a mountain made of a mole hill because it’s in the interest of the sensationalist media and some competitors to push a story about how the dominant team, owned by the guy who also owns of the track and the series, is cheating. And 3 guys get thrown under the bus, so the owner can credibly signal that the race and the whole series isn’t rigged. It raises the issue of whether Penske should own a team when he’s effectively prevented from defending his people against this sort of nonsense, only because he also owns the track and the series.
https://www.motorsport.com/indycar/news/penskes-modifications-arent-the-actual-problem-the-fact-that-no-one-caught-them-is/10724722/
Thank you for posting the link to this article. As it objectively explains, the “modifications” to the attenuators were made for purely aesthetic reasons, only, and were not intended to effect performance, nor could they effect performance. McLaughlin’s car was not found in violation because it had an attenuator from a later batch, produced by Dallara, that didn’t have the unsightly glue stains and rough edges on the earlier ones on Power’s and Newgarden’s cars. For once, “Penske perfection” backfired!
This is the kind of nonsense you get with a micromanaged spec series based on a 12-year-old chassis design — an obsession with the trivial … even when it’s immaterial and should logically be judged irrelevant!