Roger Penske Fires Entire Team Penske Leadership Days Before Indy 500 Over Another Cheating Scandal

You could call the last 96 or so hours at Indianapolis newsworthy. Enough so that a rookie driver securing pole for the first time in four decades with a first-year team is more or less a footnote going into the 500 itself. Another cheating scandal with Team Penske hit over the weekend. Josef Newgarden and Will Power were effectively banned from Fast 12 Qualifying and then kicked to the 11th and final row on the grid. The infraction in this case? Illegally modified rear attenuators (TLDR; effectively the rear of the car, which can induce safer (very relative term in this case) rear-end crashes, and is attached to the gearbox area) on both cars, which, of course, are spec parts from Dallara.

Graphic via Dallara

Also alarming here is that Will Power was initially cleared during pre-qualifying tech, and it was only after they noticed the same irregularities of the attenuator on Newgarden's No. 2 car that both got held and subsequently parked on Sunday. Understandably, drivers and personnel on other teams were furious over these developments, even after both the No. 2 and No. 12 cars got dropped from Row 4 to Row 11, some arguing that both should've been kicked out of the race entirely.

Well, that didn't happen, but something had to happen here in some regard, so in the interest of upholding, really re-establishing, the integrity of the sport, Roger Penske, fired, not suspended, fired his entire IndyCar team's front staff: Team President (and Race Strategist for Newgarden) Tim Cindric, Managing Director (and Race Strategist for Power) Ron Ruzewski, and General Manager Kyle Moyer. Team owners were notified in a 20-minute meeting earlier this morning, and the official word was broken on social media around 10:30 AM EST, with Roger Penske stating the following.

Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?

There's no shortage of people who think the two Penske entries should've been removed from the 500 all together, but I thought a measured take on things came from the person who suffered the most out of all of this: Dale Coyne Racing's Jacob Abel, who was the lone car who failed to qualify for the field of 33 outright, saying he didn't want to be in the biggest race of his life off of a technicality. Some drivers, such as Colton Herta, didn't think this rose to the level of last year's infraction with Newgarden at the St. Pete opener, while others, such as last year's Indy 500 runner up Pato O'Ward, argued that the two Penske cars should've been forced to run the last row shootout under the premise that they would've failed tech on Saturday had someone noticed, since they eventually got caught on Sunday.

Now, IndyCar President Doug Bolles did bring up IndyCar Rule 9.2.1, essentially entailing that IndyCar can impose any and all of a set of punishments for any rule violations. One of which, 9.2.2.6 in the IndyCar rulebook, specifies that they can outright disqualify entries, and even go as far as, "based on the severity of the violation, whether or not the disqualification includes the forfeiture of points and awards earned up to the moment at which time the infraction for the disqualification first occurs." They, of course, did not go this far, and the only penalties handed to Pesnke beyond getting dropped to the back of the grid were two race suspensions to the strategist, who they ended up firing days later, and a $200,000 fine.

This is my take here: the infringement last year with three Penske cars was the far more egregious infraction. This was also blatantly intentional, but not as serious as the push-to-pass violations, which also took a month-plus after the fact to get noticed by IndyCar, which is a terrible look for just about everyone involved and I don't blame those on other teams who are upset over this happening again. Beyond the strategist suspensions before their departures, a points deduction for Power and Newgarden would also have been appropriate. For context, Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin were both disqualified for that St. Pete race. Then Power was given a 10-point penalty since it was determined he had the modified push to pass installed but didn't use it illegally.

2024 '500 Comprimised?

Now, here's the real kicker: once word of this situation broke containment, some had suggested that Newgarden's winning Indy 500 car from last year had these same illegal attenuator modifications. Sure enough, some of IndyCar's beat reporters went to the car itself, which is on display at the track's museum, and it indeed does.

That would lead just about anyone to ask the following: How long has Penske been doing this? How have they been able to skirt by doing this for seemingly the last year-plus? Lastly, how long have other teams known? There's no shot they don't have people who have been able to see this the entire time, as most fans are beginning to realize this for the first time this week.

I reluctantly agree to the idea that stripping Newgarden of last year's Indianapolis 500 victory is not the way to go about this, because of the slippery slope that could have been created, but something drastic needed to be done. While Roger Penske has zero goodwill remaining as the figurehead of the sport of IndyCar, mainly, but also as well as IMS and his own team, completely clearing house of his own IndyCar operations leadership structure was for the best. That said, this situation will be used in "Conflict of Interest 101" courses nationwide within the next few years, and exactly why the most influential team owner in North American Motorsports shouldn't own one of the three biggest series on the planet anymore.

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