INDIANAPOLIS – After being among the most outspoken in the IndyCar paddock about the push to pass scandal, Michael Andretti is pleased Roger Penske took further action against this team.
But the Andretti Global team owner still questions the efficacy of the extra punishment.
Penske suspended four team members from at-track IndyCar activity, most notably Team Penske president Tim Cindric, after completing an internal investigation of the illegal use of the push-to-pass button in the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg season opener. IndyCar officials disqualified race winner Josef Newgarden and third-place finisher Scott McLaughlin for the infractions April 24, but it took nearly until two weeks later for Penske to issue its self-imposed punishments.
Andretti said last week he would have fired Rob Edwards, who is Andretti Global’s chief operating officer and roughly the management equivalent of Cindric, if he had discovered such rulebreaking within his team. Andretti reiterated that point while reacting to the Penske suspensions during a Friday interview with NBC Sports.
“If I was in that position I probably would have fired (Cindric), but at least (Penske) did something, so I was happy about that,” Andretti told NBC Sports. “Is it going to be a real penalty? No, because they have the war rooms. So they’re still going to be very much involved, but they’re not going to be on the premises. But yeah, (Penske) had to do something because it just didn’t look good.
“What’s disappointing is it took him so long to do it. And it probably came from the pressure of Chevrolet, I would think. Like I said, and I told (Penske) to his face, if I didn’t know about it and somebody did that, they’d be gone, you know? It’s his reputation, that would be my reputation, and that’s why I’m disappointed he didn’t fire anyone. You wonder then if he knew something.”
There also was external pressure on Penske from IndyCar drivers and team members, who found Newgarden’s explanation for why he illegally used push to pass on restarts less than believable.
During a podcast with NASCAR veteran Kenny Wallace last week, Andretti called out Penske’s reaction to the scandal in saying that “none of the stories matched up.”
Asked by NBC Sports if the suspensions sent a reassuring message to the paddock, Andretti said Friday that “it’s a better message. It could have been done earlier. It’s sort of like you had to get outside pressure to get it done, but at least he did it.”
In addition to the suspensions, Penske also has stipulated that its suspended employees won’t be allowed to communicate with the team while cars are on the track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this month.
Andretti, though, is skeptical about how such a policy would be enforced and openly wondered whether IndyCar would keep an eye on whether Team Penske would remain in compliance (while adding that his team “easily” could circumvent a communications ban).
“I hope they monitor it some way,” Andretti said. “But I know we could easily do it. And so I’m sure they can.”
When asked by NBC Sports, an IndyCar spokesman said the series would have no involvement in how Team Penske handled its internal suspensions.
Though he is prevented from being at Indy this month, Cindric was spotted Friday at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, where Porsche Penske Motorsport will be racing Sunday in IMSA.
With the IndyCar Series at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Saturday’s Sonsio Grand Prix on the track’s road course (3 p.m. ET, NBC and Peacock), reaction to the Team Penske suspensions have been a big story. Andretti drivers Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson praised Penske’s punishments Thursday.
“It made such a ruckus, I think it maybe put Roger in a position where he had to do something,” Herta said. “I’m sure he didn’t want to, right? Because you want to have the best possible people on the cars for the race and especially for it to be two race weekends.
“Good for Roger because it is a hard thing to do, and that will affect them somewhat. At the very least, if they still have contact with the engineers, they don’t have the strategists that they work with all the time, and guys that know the series really well. So obviously they’re bringing in guys that have been in IndyCar in the past and know a lot about IndyCar, but there is still going to be an adjustment period for them. So, luckily, they’ll have basically two weeks to kind of get up to speed before Indy, but still I think it surely affects them somehow.”
