There is no doubt that Team Penske is one of IndyCar’s top teams, and it has been for quite some time. Penske is a destination that many drivers aspire to drive with before their career is over.
All three drivers the team currently employs, Will Power, Josef Newgarden, and Scott McLaughlin, have had impressive seasons, and between them have racked up nine of the 16 available wins this season.
With its position within the sport, the team is able to recruit the most talented drivers to their squad, while also ensuring it does not have to rely on drivers that bring their own sponsorship money to the equation in order to keep the business afloat.
Team Penske President Tim Cindric spoke about how the lack of a defined hierarchy with his team’s drivers can make for difficult decisions at times, but that difficulty is more than outweighed by the performance they can expect each weekend.
“We make a choice to have three cars in which we feel like, to start the season or start each race, should have the tools to compete for the win and should have the talent to compete for the win,” said Cindric.
“I’m very fortunate to sit in that position because I understand from a business perspective it’s not always possible to have three top-level drivers, not having a ‘buy-a-ride’ within your fleet supporting the business model.
“It’s something that I take a huge amount of appreciation for not being in that position, but at the same time it’s almost easier if you have an A and a B driver to balance those things because it’s understood in the beginning what their different roles are.
“It’s a difficult balance, but I think that they work together, the three of [our drivers] do, as well as any other three drivers. At the same time we call it the red mist, kind of gets in the way on the racetrack sometimes. I can’t say that anybody’s perfect on that front. Everybody is competitive to a certain degree.”
Having three drivers that have equal standing in the team can sometimes lead to difficult decisions, however, as in last weekend’s race from Portland.
Power was narrowly leading the championship at the start of the race, and found himself behind his team-mate McLaughlin with only a few laps remaining.
The team decided against swapping the drivers and allowed the sophomore driver to win the race he had dominated, which meant that Power lost out on 10 valuable championship points heading into the final round.
“When it comes to team orders, that type of thing, people forget that you have other obligations to other people aside from yourself,” explained Cindric.
“You have obligations to the driver, to your sponsors, to their families and all the rest on down the line. Those aren’t very obvious things, especially when you’re talking about whether someone wins a race or doesn’t win a race.”
Team Penske has all three drivers mathematically alive in the championship race for this weekend’s season finale from Laguna Seca.
