Unrest in paddock, fan mocks Penske, Boles speaks: What happened with Indy 500 tech inspections?

Indianapolis Star

19-05-2025

INDIANAPOLIS — As discontentment continues to swirl throughout corners of the IndyCar paddock regarding Roger Penske's perceived conflict of interest in owning Team Penske, long the most dominant team in IndyCar and in the Indianapolis 500, as well as IndyCar, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Ilmor, which manufacturers engines for one of the series' two engine manufacturers, Chevrolet, his team was dealt a seismic blow Sunday moments before the kickoff to the Fast 12 for Indy 500 qualifying.
There remain pivotal questions unanswered and some details still opaque, but what we do know is this: After 2024 Indy 500 polesitter Scott McLaughlin crashed during early afternoon practice for the Fast 12 — rendering him and his team eliminated from the run for pole due to the tight timeframe, the slim margins and risks of rushing a car build — both his sister entries at Team Penske, the No. 2 of Josef Newgarden and the No. 12 of Will Power, found themselves enveloped in a technical inspection snafu that led to at least one heated exchange on pitlane among a Penske Corp. executive and the owner of Team Penske's fiercest rivals.
According to IndyCar's statements on the matter, both the Nos. 2 and 12 cars failed pre-qualifying technical inspection, forfeiting their guaranteed attempts for a shot at the Fast Six and ultimately the pole. The issue at hand: an unapproved body fit on the rear attenuator on both cars, where Team Penske employees filled two different pieces of the attenuator with something akin to glue or putty, which could potentially serve as an aerodynamic advantage.
'It's an unfortunate day for us in a lot of ways,' Team Penske IndyCar president Tim Cindric told assembled media after the team's offending cars were rolled back to its garages in Gasoline Alley. The team's three entries that swept the front row of last year's Indy 500 will start 10th (McLaughlin), 11th (Newgarden) and 12th (Power) off of qualifying times from Saturday. 'Internally, we need to have a bit better process.
'You can win from the fourth row. It isn't the first row, but we'll give it a shot, and we're certainly confident in the cars that we have and the team we have. It's unfortunate that we didn't give our drivers a chance to do it or the fans a show, but we'll pick up and move forward.'
A somewhat muddied timeline of events was largely cleared up Sunday evening when IndyCar president Doug Boles met with reporters for an eight-minute scrum outside IndyCar's admin truck near its technical inspection tent.
Among the revelations from Boles:
Doyel: Team Penske dumbest cheaters of all time or haplessly innocent?
Before that decision was made, Team Penske mechanics and crew members thrashed around both cars, taking a variety of tools to the back ends of both the Nos. 2 and 12 cars in an apparent attempt to remove the filled-in seams in hope that doing so might allow them to be admitted to make a run, even as Cindric admitted knowing that IndyCar's rules plainly state that once cars pass through tech ahead of Indy 500 qualifying, they may only receive adjustments to tire pressures and wing angles.
'When we asked if we could modify or change that before we ran, it was understood at least initially that we might be able to do that,' Cindric said. 'We'd been told we could possibly change the attenuator or do something else, and we were willing to do whatever.'
It was at this time that multiple sources say Chip Ganassi, longtime owner of his namesake team which has won four of the last five IndyCar titles as well as the 2022 Indy 500, engaged in a heated exchange on pit lane with Jonathan Gibson, Penske Corp. executive vice president of marketing and business development, where Ganassi was heard saying, 'Don't make me (expletive) say something. They think they can just go through tech and do whatever they want out there.'
'If I was one of the competitors, I'd have the same argument,' Cindric said. 'We were obviously willing to fix that and do something basically that conformed in the eyes of the officials. Internally, we need to have a bit better process, but yeah, if you don't pass inspection at that point in time, you don't get the chance to go. There was no use really in putting one or both of our cars out there and doing a qualifying run and putting our drivers at risk if we knew it essentially hadn't passed inspection on the way through.
'At the end of the day, we didn't do it right.'
Cindric said he went into the team's garages to survey the mangled parts of the No. 3 and determined after inspecting the wreckage that McLaughlin's car had not been modified in the same manner.
'In our eyes, it's not a performance advantage, but at the end of the day, if they don't like the seam being filled, they don't like the seam being filled,' Cindric said. 'It's not a safety issue whatsoever. You would argue whether it is or isn't (a performance advantage), but it's no different than what you see in NASCAR or whatever else. Everyone's trying to make the cars as sleek as you can. In house, we've got to look at ourselves and ask why we're doing certain things one way or another, but at the end of the day, I think they're just trying to make the cars look nice.
'But you've got to do what the inspection process is and conform to that, and we'll live with it and start on the fourth row. I guess I'd rather know it doesn't conform now rather than arguing about it after qualifying or during the race or whenever else. I'd rather just move on.'
The paddock, on the other hand, isn't about to.
He said it: Pato O'Ward doesn't mince words after Penske's mishap
As some teams pour over photos and videos of the weekend in an attempt to uncover any evidence that the illegally filled in seams were present on the Team Penske cars for Saturday's qualifying action, there are other paddock members frankly disappointed for the series that these lightning rod issues continue to crop up that create doubt and dissension in the product and the process of American open-wheel racing.
As IndyStar reported this spring, Penske Entertainment officials have held discussions regarding the possibility of adopting an independent race control arm — either via seeking out an already created racing governing body like USAC or the FIA to rule over it, or creating some wholly new organization that sits outside the purview of IndyCar, Penske Entertainment and Penske Corp.— as conflict of interest concerns, or rather the perception of such, seep into the series' negotiations with current and future manufacturers who aren't satisfied with the status quo.
No one has come out and said they whole heartedly believe anyone within Penske Entertainment or IndyCar has made any attempts to favor Team Penske in any way, but on days like Sunday when some crucially important questions remain unanswered — namely, why were those parts tampered with; were the tampered attenuators on the Team Penske cars on Saturday; and if so, why weren't they discovered? — a dark cloud on the sport gains another dimension entirely.
An Andretti Global car with a missing piece, or a Prema Racing car without its fire extinguishing system properly setup — both issues discovered at Thermal — become hours-long news cycles easily brushed off by varying levels of accident or ineptitude. Violations of the on-track product by the team whose ultimate boss also lords over those who run the sport will never be easy for many in the paddock to swallow.
'They weren't accidentally doing it, because they had a blowtorch right there in order to get it out,' front-row qualifier Pato O'Ward said. 'Honestly, I feel for (bumped 500 driver) Jacob Abel and for everybody that did the Last Chance Shootout. Because (the Team Penske cars) weren't in regulation.
'I'm not an engineer, so I can't tell you what they were doing or how much speed that's (worth) or if it is any speed. But obviously, it's not in regulations. The rule is pretty black and white.'
Said team manager from a separate organization: '(Not) modifying a stock part is a golden rule in this sport. Certainly, McLaughlin was prepared the same way.'
Said another: 'I don't believe a single bit that the No. 3 was unlike the other two.'
Boles said he'd yet to speak with Cindric, and neither had he gotten his own eyes on the attenuator of the No. 3 car to confirm the Team Penske IndyCar president's assertions that McLaughlin's car had been in compliance before his crash. When he was prompted by the concerns of others in the paddock, his response was simply, 'All I can tell you ... it was found today.'
Additionally, Boles said nothing in IndyCar's rulebook would allow the series to send cars that had theoretically qualified for the 500 via their Day 1 times — times that some will believe were set with with legally prepared cars — be erased and sent to Last Chance Qualifying. When asked by IndyStar whether he could confirm that the changes that ran afoul of IndyCar's rules were made in the time between Saturday's action and Sunday's, or if they'd been on the car all weekend, Cindric replied in a text message to IndyStar: 'I'm done responding to all of this.'
Standing a few feet away from Cindric as he held his media availability outside the team's garages was a fan sporting a white T-shirt with a large logo mocked up in an identical style to that of Team Penske with the black, bold, all-caps, italic letters, two lines and a red line running horizontally through the two lines of text. That person's shirt read, "Team Cheaters," and immediately after Cindric's scrum interview was complete, the bystander could be heard saying loud enough for Cindric to hear, 'You're living up to your reputation.'