Team Penske announced sweeping departures among key personnel for the organization’s NTT IndyCar Series program on Wednesday. The personnel changes come as the team has been put under the microscope for a cheating scandal involving the smoothing of the gaps between attenuators on the cars driven by Josef Newgarden and Will Power in Indianapolis 500 qualifying last week.
Team Penske’s IndyCar Team President, Tim Cindric, IndyCar Managing Director, Ron Ruzewski, and IndyCar General Manager, Kyle Moyer, have all been released from the organization.
According to Team Penske, the team will have further announcements this week related to personnel and replacements for this weekend’s 109th Indianapolis 500.
Roger Penske, team owner for Team Penske, issued a statement on the sweeping changes to the personnel within the organization’s NTT IndyCar Series program, and Penske apologized to his team’s fans, partners, and organization for the controversy.
“Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams,” Penske said in his statement. “We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes. I apologize to our fans, our partners, and our organization for letting them down.”
Last week, Newgarden and Power qualified fast enough to compete in the Fast 12 qualifying session for the Indianapolis 500, but in pre-qualifying inspection, the irregularities with the attenuators on the race cars was discovered, and the cars were not permitted to compete in the Fast 12 qualifying session, and were initially credited with the 11th and 12th starting spots for the Indianapolis 500.
As the controversy surrounding the attenuators continued to amplify, the NTT IndyCar Series announced elevated penalties for the two Team Penske cars, which would result in Newgarden and Power being dropped to 32nd and 33rd in the starting grid for the 109th Indianapolis 500.
Journalists began investigating further, and after trips to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, where Newgarden’s 2024 Indianapolis 500 race-winning car is on display, it was discovered that Newgarden’s car had the same illegal attenuator on his car in that race.
This is the second cheating scandal involving the Team Penske NTT IndyCar Series program since the beginning of the 2024 season.
