When the news of the Freedom 250 hit last Friday, Jan 30 – it was big. So big that it moved Content Days and everything else IndyCar-related to the back-burner. Strategically squeezed in between the end of Content Days and the Presidential announcement of the Freedom 250, was a bit of news that was big in its own right. It was just conveniently lost in the shuffle. The news that came on Thursday Jan 29 was the return of Tim Cindric.
If you’ll recall, Cindric was fired from Team Penske last May, just days before the Indianapolis 500; along with other Penske employees also in key roles – Kyle Moyer and Ron Ruzewski.
Kyle Moyer was the first to find employment elsewhere, landing at Arrow McLaren by mid-summer. Probably due to the wording in his contract, Ruzewski wasn’t named to his role at Andretti Global until after the end of the 2025 IndyCar season. Both Moyer and Ruzewski are in roles where they can use their knowledge from Team Penske to gain an advantage over their former employer. Meanwhile, Cindric sat silent for the remainder of 2025. He didn’t burn bridges; he never showed any sour grapes and in fact – we never heard from him.
Many, including myself, figured that Cindric was going to sit back and count the money he hardly had time to spend; while winning Penske championships in IndyCar, NASCAR and sports cars. About this time last year, we got our first hint that Cindric was ready to start taking it easy. He stepped away from running all of Team Penske’s racing programs, and settled into simply running their historic IndyCar program. That was a huge amount taken off of his plate.
Some speculated at the time that this was Cindric’s punishment for the controversy at St. Petersburg in 2024, when all three Penske cars were found to be illegal – by having their software manipulated where those three cars were the only ones in the field that were able to use the Push-to-Pass button on restarts. Winner Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin were both disqualified from the race standings a few weeks later, when the same “glitch” was showing up at Long Beach, but this time it did not go unnoticed. Will Power was able to remain in the standings, since he never used his button, but he was docked several positions and points. It was a severe black-eye for the sport, and Team Penske in particular.
Making it even more embarrassing is the fact that the owner of Team Penske also owns the series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It’s just not a good look, when the owner of the whole series gets caught cheating, whether it was intentional or not. That team needs to be beyond reproach so that there is no question whether or not the playing field is level.
Personally, I don’t think Cindric stepping away was actually a punishment or demotion. I truly think he was in a point in his life where it was time to start cutting back the workload – and the pressure. Cindric will turn 58 in a couple of months. Having been in a high-profile position with Team Penske since 1999, I can certainly see where he would start entertaining the idea of cutting back. But those that say he was being punished could be right. I have no way of knowing. But if I had to guess (which is what anyone is doing), I would say that Cindric was being truthful, when he said it was time to start stepping away.
Fast-forward to May of 2025, just a few months after Cindric stepped back from the other Penske programs, and about fourteen months after the scandal at St. Petersburg. All three Penske cars were found to be out of compliance, with attenuators that had been altered in order to make them more streamlined. The cars or Josef Newgarden and Will Power had already qualified, while McLaughlin had not. Newgarden and Power were sent to the back of the field, while McLaughlin qualified his corrected car in the inside of Row Four. It didn’t really matter because McLaughlin took himself out at the beginning of the Pace Lap, before the green flag waved.
Somewhere in the week before Qualifying and the Race Weekend; Cindric, Moyer and Ruzewski were all fired. A second scandal in fourteen months brought out the wolves. Someone had to pay. It was those three in key leadership roles with the team.
With Moyer and Ruzewski both finding high-level employment with teams that had higher overall finishes in the season, than the highest finishing Penske driver (Power, ninth in points); attention turned to Cindric, wondering what he would do. As it turns out, Cindric realized by the end of 2025 that he was getting bored.
I retired exactly one month ago today on January 9. To be honest, I’ve not gotten bored. It’s still early, but I really think I’m going to enjoy this newfound leisure. But Cindric is almost ten years younger than I am. Ten years ago, I would not have been ready to retire – especially if someone made that decision for me.
I was listening to Trackside this past Thursday night, and I think Kevin Lee has pretty well nailed it on exactly what happened. When Cindric started getting antsy toward the end of the year, he probably looked at the landscape across the IndyCar paddock. If he went to another team like McLaren or Ganassi, he would not have access to the data or all of the information that remained at Team Penske – but he would have what was in his mind, that contained a wealth of knowledge.
Why go to the trouble of acclimating to a new team that has procedures he was unfamiliar with? Why not see if he can possibly return to his old team, having already served the punishment of public disgrace. He could use that information still in his head to beat an already weakened Team Penske, after going to another team; or he could return and use his talents and wealth of experience and information to help restore the once-proud team that has accomplished more than any other team over the past sixty years.
Tim Cindric needed to be back involved with IndyCar. The series is better off with him in it. Did he share some blame for the two scandals? Of course he did. He sat at the top, just below Roger Penske himself. He didn’t program the Push-to-Pass buttons, or perform cosmetic surgery on the attenuators, but both happened under his watch. But was his involvement so egregious that he should be effectively banned forever?
I think Tim Cindric is one of the smartest guys in the paddock. I think Roger Penske and Jonathan Diuguid, Cindric’s replacement know it to. It may be awkward at first, but once Cindric settles into what amounts to working race-weekends only – I think all will benefit.
To me, this is a win-win for Cindric, Diuguid and Team Penske. If Diuguid runs across a problem that has him stumped, he can freely pick up the phone and pick Cindric’s brain – that is, if his ego will let him. I think it will. Had Cindric gone to Ganassi, do you think Diuguid is making that phone call? Hardly. While it’s a win-win for all of those involved, the biggest winner is Scott McLaughlin, who now has (I think) the best strategist in the business directly in his ear on Race Weekends.
Josef Newgarden noted how odd it was to see Ron Ruzewski at the tire-test at Phoenix, working with the Andretti team. His first instinct was to debrief with him what he felt in the tires, but he realized he could no longer do that, and Newgarden said that felt very strange. If that seems strange, how odd would it seem to see Tim Cindric wearing Papaya Orange this season? I’m glad we are spared that shock to the system.
Some say they think this was all pre-arranged when Cindric was fired last May. I don’t, but I think enough time has passed that cooler heads have prevailed. Cindric has been publicly humiliated, while Penske got his point across. But over time, they both realized that the two groups working together could still produce a greater result than the two camps competing against each other.
Some are upset that Cindric is back. Haters are going to hate. Personally, I’m glad it has worked out the way it has. Cindric is still able to step away, but can bring a lot to the table at Team Penske. It will be good to see Tim Cindric back in the saddle again with Team Penske in 2026.
George Phillips
Oilpressure 