Penske announce departures of Cindric, Ruzewski, Moyer after attenuator controversy

Written by Dan Jones

Credit: Dana Garrett

Roger Penske has announced the departure of Team Penske's IndyCar Team President, Tim Cindric, IndyCar Managing Director, Ron Ruzewski and IndyCar General Manager, Kyle Moyer after the team fell foul of the IndyCar rulebook, as Josef Newgarden and Will Power were relegated to the final row for the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500.

The team were once again involved in a cheating scandal, just 13 months after race winner, Newgarden and third place finisher, McLaughlin were disqualified from the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg for illegal push-to-pass usage on starts and re-starts.

Both Newgarden and Power were found to have illegally modified attenuators, a spec part that IndyCar states must be unaltered. The team had been found to smoothen two parts of the attenuator with a filler, with the situation only worsened by the same illegal filler being displayed on Newgarden's race-winning car from last year's Indianapolis 500, as well as multiple road course races since the start of the 2024 season.

The series has since said that the result of last year's Indianapolis 500 will not be amended, despite Penske stating that the entry did indeed race with the filler in.

"Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams," said Roger Penske. "We have had organisational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes. I apologise to our fans, our partners and our organisation for letting them down."

The No.2 and No.12 entries of Newgarden and Power were caught with the illegal filler during technical inspection for the Fast 12 in the second day of qualifying, which has since raised further questions on why it was able to pass on the first day of technical inspection. Both cars were unable to run in the Fast 12 due to the technical failure. IndyCar have since fined both entries $100,000, loss of points from qualifying and relegated both cars to the back row.

McLaughlin was not set to run in the Fast 12 anyway, due to crashing in that morning's practice, however, the series seized his attentuator after his accident and confirmed that the Kiwi's car was compliant with the IndyCar rulebook, hence he still starts 10th for Sunday's race.

Doug Boles, president of IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, said the following after the penalties were announced: "I can tell you that Roger Penske would not condone this. In fact, I had a chance to talk with 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."

Cindric and Ruzewski, alongside Newgarden's race engineer, Luke Mason and Penske's Senior Data Engineer, Robbie Atkinson, were suspended for last year's Indianapolis 500 in the fallout of the St. Petersburg push-to-pass controversy but had continued in their roles since. Newgarden won the event with Jonathan Diuguid, Head of Porsche Penske Motorsport in Cindric's absence.

Newgarden aims to become the first driver in the 109 year history of the event to win three events in a row.

Cindric, who has been with the team since 1999 has acted as Newgarden's strategist for several years. Ruzewski, Power's strategist, has been on the team since 2005, whilst Moyer, McLaughlin's strategist has been with Penske since 2015.

Penske stated that: "Team Penske will have further announcements this week related to personnel and replacements for this weekend's Indianapolis 500."