Upon Further Review INDYCAR Penalizes Team Penske Ahead Of Indy 500
(Photo by Paul Hurley/Penske Entertainment)
By Dennis Krause
Initially excluded from Top 12 Qualifying on Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for an illegally modified attenuator and moved to 11th and 12th in the starting field, the No. 2 car of Josef Newgarden and the No. 12 of Will Power received a harsher penalty on Monday.
Newgarden, the two-time and defending race winner and Power, the 2018 winner, will now have to start Sunday’s 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 from the 32nd and 33rd starting positions. In addition, Team Penske’s two strategists, Tim Cindric and Ron Ruzewksi, have been excluded from the event, and the team fined $100,000 per car.
In announcing the penalties, INDYCAR and Speedway President, Doug Boles, said the integrity of the series and the event was at stake.
“Throughout the night and sort of getting into this a little bit more and, frankly, thinking about the integrity and the importance of this race, INDYCAR has a rule. It's Rule 9.2.1. I think it's important in this conversation. "Penalties can be determined by the gravity of the violation and its impact on the fairness of competition. INDYCAR has the authority to impose any or all or any combination of the following penalties against any member for any violation of the rules at any time."
“It sets out of a lot of things, all of which we have the authority to do based on this rule. The thing that strikes me the most about this rule is the gravity of the violation. This is the world's largest motorsport event, the Indianapolis 500. This event defines who people are.”
Boles added, “It's the biggest race in the world, and integrity is paramount for us to continue to grow this event. To me the result of being able to start where you might have ended up qualifying anyway had you been able to qualify is not a penalty deserving of what had happened there.
“So for me and for the team at INDYCAR, we had a conversation this morning working through this. This is the right result.”
In a statement, Team Penske has accepted the penalties and will not appeal.
“We accept the penalties issued today by the INDYCAR Series which are due to a “Body Fit” violation that occurred prior to the qualifying session yesterday. We are disappointed by the results and the impact it has on our organization. We will make further announcements later this week related to personnel for the upcoming Indianapolis 500.”
(Photo by James Black/Penske Entertainment
According to Boles, there wasn’t any consideration given to excluding both Newgarden and Power from the race.
“Not really. The facts are what I know from Sunday, and I've explained to you how we got to this point on Sunday. They had qualified in the top 30. The top 30 are locked into the Indianapolis 500. As far as I know, everything was correct on Saturday.
“So to remove them from the event for something that happened inside of the top 12 just didn't seem like the right result here. Like I said, we have gone beyond what our rules say and have moved them to the back of the grid, taken away their points, fined them. We're suspending two of their personnel.
“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 and fall within our rules. The rule said the fastest 30 cars are locked into the Indianapolis 500.”
While Boles, Cindric and INDYCAR Technical Director, Kevin “Rocket” Blanch, said the modified attenuators were discovered on Sunday, multiple teams say they alerted INDYCAR prior to Sunday and no action was taken. Boles, who’s been INDYCAR’s president for just two months says he’s not aware of those claims.
“So I guess the first way to respond to that,” Boles said, “it was found on Sunday. So those are the facts. The facts I know is it was found on Sunday. This penalty is based on what happened on Sunday.
“I have had teams tell me since last night that they have photos of cars -- not just Penske cars -- other cars with things on cars that are not within the rules, and I've asked them why no one has sent anything to me or ever said anything to me about that? So I have never heard that.
“I know that's around the paddock, but I have never heard the news. If somebody had told me that was the case, I would have gone to Rocket and talked to Rocket and made sure we paid attention to that. In my conversations with Rocket, Rocket has said that he does hear from teams occasionally about a lot of things, but he did not specifically say that he heard something about this particular issue.
“Again, I'm just going on the facts that I have. The facts that I have is I know that yesterday the car was not conforming to our rules. I can only make a decision on what I know. I can only encourage people if there are photos of cars with things illegal on them, they need to tell me. Then I can address it, but I can't address something that happened last year when I wasn't even in this job, and I can't address something that happened on Saturday if nobody had the guts to come and tell me it was going on Saturday.”
On the social media site X, RACER Magazine’s Marshall Pruett posted enhanced photos of Newgarden’s winning car on track at last year’s 500 that appear to show a smooth-edged attenuator as do photos of Newgarden’s winning car on display at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
It’s the second time in two seasons Team Penske has been part of scandal. In April of 2024, it was discovered that Newgarden and Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin were able to use the push-to-pass system when they shouldn’t have.
Rival teams are not amused. Managing director of Chip Ganassi Racing, Mike Hull, told IndyCar Radio, “The Indianapolis 500 is a global event. It's not a domestic event. It's not an inside (I-)465 event. It's a global event. And it needs to be handled with integrity. Integrity by the teams that are represented on the grid.
“I think this should send a strong statement to everyone on the grid…I’m disappointed in what I’ve seen.”
Sunday’s events have heightened calls by teams for an independent governance of the series owned and run by Roger Penske and Penske Entertainment. Boles said the tech team did their job, Sunday, but understands the optics of the situation.
“I've known Roger Penske for an awful long time, and I've gotten to know him really well since November 2019 (when Penske purchased the Speedway and the series). I don't think Roger Penske understands some of the things that might be going on.
“I get the optics challenge, and it's definitely something we should think about. I mean, how do you manage the optics challenge? A lot of these challenges I think are -- while they roll up to Roger at the end of the day, I think they are certainly below him. There are things that happen that don't ever get to Roger.
“I can tell you that Roger Penske would not condone this. In fact, I had a chance to talk to Roger, and I can tell that this is devastating to him. Nothing means more to Roger Penske than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500. He certainly loves racing across the board. This is something that I think he's going to have to address at some point in time.
“As far as the series goes, we are open to looking at wherever we are, but right now at this point in time we have a tech team that did their job yesterday. They found the attenuators. We stopped both of them, and I think we've appropriately resolved or at least appropriately addressed -- maybe not resolved forever, but we've appropriately addressed this particular situation.
“That's a big question, right, that we have to spend some time thinking about.”
On a day when reserved seating for Sunday’s 500 officially sold out, Boles was forced to defend his series and its biggest race.
“I would much rather be talking about how great the Indianapolis 500 is and how our ticket sales are and how we had our biggest qualifying weekend in terms of attendance since 2016.
“The challenge right now is getting our paddock to feel comfortable that it's still there. 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 song book.
“I don't think our momentum will slow going into this weekend. In fact, I think our momentum will continue to pick up going into it. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be right here right now addressing this the way we're addressing it.”
Dennis Krause has spent decades covering all forms of motorsports, including over 40 Indianapolis 500s, with stints at WIBA Radio, PIT PASS - Radio’s Premier Motorsports Magazine and Motorsports Minute. Follow him on X @DennisKrause500 or motorsportsminute.bluesky.social or motorsportsminute on Threads or MotorsportsMinute+ on Facebook.