All four will not only miss this weekend’s Indianapolis Grand Prix on The Brickyard’s infield road course but also IndyCar’s very biggest race, the Indy 500 itself.
Roger Penske himself admittedly he “deeply regret[s]” that the breaches occurred via the statement in which the team announced the suspensions.
Subsequently, Cindric provided his own comment via another team-issued statement, remarking, “For Ron and I as leaders of this team, it’s not about what we did, it’s about what we didn’t do.
“It is our responsibility to provide the team and all our drivers with the right processes to ensure something like this can’t happen.
“For that, I apologize to Roger, our team and everyone that supports us.
“Our number one job is to protect and enhance the reputation of our brand and that of those that support us.
“In that regard, as the overall leader, I failed, and I must raise my hand and be accountable with the others.
“This is a team, and in my position, it’s the right thing to do.”
Ironically, while Car #2 of Newgarden and Car #3 of Scott McLaughlin were disqualified from the St Petersburg race, with Car #12 driver Will Power docked 10 series points, it is the crews on Cars #2 and #12 which are affected by the suspensions but not Car #3.
Power is collateral damage because Ruzewski happens to be Car #12’s strategist and Atkinson Car #12’s data engineer in addition to the overarching role he holds in the team.
While Cindric is Newgarden’s strategist, he was referred to simply as “President of Team Penske” in its announcement of the suspensions, which furthermore noted that he “has accountability for all of Team Penske’s operations.”
The inference is that his punishment is attributed to his leadership role in Team Penske broadly, rather than a specific failure as the Car #2 strategist.
Notably, Newgarden claimed that he was under the misapprehension that IndyCar had changed its rules to allow push-to-pass on restarts, consistent with the one-off which applied for The Thermal Club exhibition event.
“On the 2 car … somehow, some way, we convinced ourselves that there was a rule change to restarts specifically with overtake usage,” he said in the days after the disqualifications were handed down.
Mason’s, however, is the only suspension of an individual assigned only to a particular car, that being Newgarden’s, while Atkinson has reportedly been benched because of his role in the technical aspect of the breach.
He is said to have been involved in loading up the software which including modified code claimed by Cindric to have been used for hybrid testing last August and mistakenly carried into this year’s races.
Penske is yet to announce replacement engineers and/or strategists for Newgarden and Power for the Month of May.
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