Team Penske releases three top executives following Indy 500 qualifying violations

In the wake of the team’s second major technical violation in two years, Roger Penske announced the departure of three of its main INDYCAR race team executives, including longtime executive Tim Cindric from the Team Penske race team organization.

The statement from the team called them "departures," but it has all the looks of a firing. Cindric, who was the team president throughout all series up until this year when he stepped back to run the INDYCAR team, had been with the organization since 1999.

Also ousted were the team’s INDYCAR managing director Ron Ruzewski and general manager Kyle Moyer. All three also served as team strategists — Cindric for Josef Newgarden, Ruzewski for Will Power and Moyer for Scott McLaughlin.

Ruzewski had been with the team since 2005; Moyer since 2015.

"Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams," Penske said. "We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes.

"I apologize to our fans, our partners and our organization for letting them down."  

The most recent violation came in qualifying Sunday when INDYCAR officials found the cars of Newgarden and Power had fill in the seams at the connection with the attenuator at the rear of the car. 

Neither was allowed to participate in the Sunday qualifying session for the top-12 cars and INDYCAR president Doug Boles announced Monday they would start at the rear of the field for the Indy 500 while Cindric and Ruzewski were suspended for the race and the teams fined $100,000.

In the wake of the violation, photos of the 2024 race-winning Newgarden car that also is displayed in the speedway museum also appear to have the seams filled as well.

This violation still paled