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Roger Penske is well aware his integrity has been questioned because of a cheating scandal that cost Josef Newgarden his season-opening IndyCar victory.
“It always bothers you when people take shots at you,” Penske said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. “But you know something, we have a strong foundation. People know who we are and how we operate. I guess we’ll have to move on.
“But sometimes when there’s blood in the water, people like to go after you and I think that’s what happened. I’m fine. I mean, we moved on.”
Newgarden moved past Pato O’Ward in the third turn of the final lap to win his second consecutive Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, giving Team Penske its record 20th victory in the race amid a scandal that has rocked IndyCar.
“The controversy, as far as I’m concerned, was way overblown,” Penske told the AP.
The series shifts to the Motor City this week, racing in the Detroit Grand Prix on Sunday.
Nearly six weeks after Newgarden’s victory in Florida, IndyCar discovered Penske’s three cars had an illegal version of the push-to-pass software installed that allowed their drivers to use the horsepower boost when no one else in the field had access to the advantage.
“Newgarden never should have had to worry about it because our team missed it, but it was not malicious,” Penske said. “By the way, it was available for everybody to look at it at all the races. So at the end of the day, we took our medicine and we’re moving on.”
Penske suspended four crew members, including team president Tim Cindric, the star strategist in IndyCar who calls Newgarden’s races, for the Indy 500.
“They weren’t there and we were able to show you how deep our bench was because we won the race,” Penske said, adding the previously suspended crew members are back with the team in Detroit.
Zak Brown, head of Arrow McLaren Racing, who has been involved in motorsports for nearly 40 years, said the Penske punishments were too light.
Brown called Cindric’s presence at Penske’s sports car win at Laguna Seca earlier this month while under suspension “a bad look.”
Newgarden, following a luncheon to promote the Detroit Grand Prix, said he did not want to hypothesize to suggest the motivation behind the shots Penske has taken.
After Newgarden’s latest Indy 500 win, though, he did say he was grateful for everything during this turbulent season.
“It’s an experience that it’s got to either break you or tough you up, and for me, that’s all I’ll say about it,” he said. “We’ve been moving forward. We’ve never worked together more as a group, and I thought that was difficult to do.
“This is the most tight-knit team I’ve ever seen.”
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Look Roger, you’re not going to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing when:
-You own Indianapolis Motor Speedway
-You own Indycar
-You own the best Indycar team
-You have deep roots & more pull with Ilmor Engineering-Chevrolet – one of Indycar’s two engine manufacturers – than anybody else.
It certainly doesn’t help your image Newgarden won the 2023 Indy 500 after a ticky-tacky red flag and then Newgarden went on to start the 2024 season by breaking rules (aka cheating) to finish P1.
At the very least, it just looks terrible and always will. And maybe there’s smoke here, who knows.
I think IndyCar would be better if Penske gave up the racing team to spend his time, money, and efforts working to improve the series. The series would get well needed TLC to boost the marketing of other races and there’d be no appearance of impropriety shadowing over the entire sport.
before somebody points it out, I know that Penske will never do it.
I guess no good deed goes unpunished. Penske is a race car owner. He stepped up in a badly needed way to likely save the Indy Car Series. This whole push to pass issue is way overblown. For sure the team screwed up and it it gives folks a lot to talk about. Some body as brilliant as Penske isn’t gonna cheat, especially when it is in plain view for everyone to see. I was at the St Pete race. His use of the PTP had no bearing on the outcome. He had the dominate car over the last 25 laps. Just like Indy. I don’t root for the Penske drivers but enough already.
What the scandal did (and is doing) is showing Penske and his organizations true character. The actual infraction, as you say, was probably minor, though I do think it helped Josef win. What happened later was the problem. There is no way that they could have not known the software was there, or thought the rule changed, as Josef said. Instead of owning up, saying “yep, we were trying to find every edge. This software happened to be left installed and we took advantage. We’re sorry.” They tried to act like we were all stupid, and Roger is still trying to act like we’re stupid, by saying what’s the big deal? It was an accident? Geez guys lighten up! Even at his advanced age, apparently Roger still needs a lesson in learning how to act like a grown man.
LOL, he didn’t “save” the Indy Car Series, there certainly were other/bigger options that wanted to buy Indy Car. Liberty Media for one had interest and was shot down because the H-G family still had hurt feelings over F-1 leaving even though they didn’t even own F-1 at that time… The real problem was it was never “put up for sale” so we don’t exactly know everyone who would have been interested but there would have been plenty of interested parties.
Much respect for and appreciation of Roger Penske.
Matthew B. How can you say it helped him win at St Pete. Were you at the race. I was sitting in the first turn where his use of PTP would have been most noticeable. He absolutely ran away from everyone for the last 25-30 laps when he didn’t use it. I’m not a Team Penske fan only because they have won so much over the years. I’ve never sat in the stands and rooted for Newgarden, Power, Helio or anyone else but this issue is so overblown. I have always rooted for Andretti cars except for Rossi who is just not likeable but Michael’s calling out of Roger on multiple fronts has been totally unnecessary. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Id hate to see where things would be if Roger hadn’t been in charge during the Covid season.
Joe A. Nobody knows IndyCar better than Penske. 20 Indy 500 wins pretty much seals the deal on that discussion. Liberty Media. Really? IndyCar has the best racing hands down. Not even a close 2nd.