The call by Austin Dillon for NASCAR to suspend Austin Cindric for the NASCAR Cup Series event at Sonoma Raceway will go unanswered, per Elton Sawyer, Senior VP of Competition, who confirmed Tuesday that no penalties will be handed to the Team Penske driver.
Dillon, who felt he was right-reared by Cindric in the closing stages of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at World Wide Technology Raceway, had some strong words to share after exiting the infield care center, highlighted by “he better be suspended next week”.
The accident occurred with about 20 laps remaining in Sunday’s 300-mile race, when contact between Cindric and Dillon sent the No. 3 Chevrolet Camaro up the track, where he slammed into the No. 47 of Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
“Looking back at that incident, we haven’t seen anything that really would rise to a level that would be a suspension or a penalty,” said Elton Sawyer. “It looked like hard racing, one car coming up a bit, another car going down.”
While in the moment, NASCAR’s SMT Data was not working – due to a mid-race internet outage that swept across World Wide Technology Raceway – the sanctioning body was still able to look at the stored data after the event.
“As we said last week, we take these incidents very seriously when we see cars that are turned head-on into another car, head-on into the wall. So spending a lot of time yesterday looking at all of that, looking at the data, the TV footage, and just seeing this one as really hard racing.”
Sawyer says that NASCAR plans to have a meeting with both Austin Cindric and Austin Dillon before Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Sonoma, to ensure that everybody is on the same page moving forward.
“But, again, looking at it, taking all the data and resources and all, we’ll move forward without a penalty on this one.”
After the announcement by NASCAR that no penalties will be filed against Austin Cindric, the Team Penske driver took to Twitter with the SMT Data in question, as well as a statement.
— Austin Cindric (@AustinCindric) June 6, 2023
In his statement, Cindric says: “I am not a fan of the idea of taking to social media to deal with on-track issues, but it has become clear to me that my voice and input is needed for this discussion to come to an end.”
— Austin Cindric (@AustinCindric) June 6, 2023
Cindric continues by saying that although he made contact with Dillon, it wasn’t intentional, and he felt that the data was pretty cut and dry, but that he felt the need to provide the data.
“As a professional, I do not enjoy having my character in question when it is not justified. We are expected to race hard and I will not apologize for doing so, but I will be the first person to raise my hand and listen when I’ve done something wrong.”
The Team Penske driver says that he has reached out to Austin Dillon so they can “discuss our differences as professionals”, but states he has yet to receive a response.
