Penske’s IndyCar operation went from four full-time cars to three for 2022, and has not added an extra car for the 500. This will mark the first time since 2014 that Team Penske has entered only three cars for Indy.
With Simon Pagenaud, who won the race for Penske in 2019, now at Meyer Shank Racing, the three remaining drivers – Will Power, Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin – have had to work hard to investigate different setup avenues, especially given the Day 2 rainout.
Asked by Motorsport.com if the squad was missing a fourth car Cindric replied: “It's a good question, and I think there's certainly positives and negatives to it in terms of focus versus data and information. And when you have a guy like Simon in the team and how good he is here, he certainly brought a lot to the team. We certainly miss having him as part of it.
“But then when you look at the preparation and what it takes to get these cars ready to go race at Indy, I think regardless of who's driving the cars, the attention to detail you can always have with fewer cars.
“It's a balance here for sure. We've run five cars here, and this is the first time we've run three cars in quite a while. It's been refreshing in some ways in terms of simplicity, but certainly miss having Simon as part of the team.”
Last year, the Penske cars qualified disastrously, between 17th and 32nd, the latter spot being earned by 2018 winner Power, who had to go through the tension-filled Bump Day to make it in the field.
Asked if the squad had put its finger on what went so wrong, Cindric replied: “I think we'll find out maybe after qualifying this year, to be honest, to see if we're right. I don't think you ever know until you know.
“We had a couple of cars that were solid in the show, and we've got poor Will out there trying to make the show. I think we're still scratching our heads on some fronts. There's some areas where we could certainly be better and wouldn't have put ourselves in the situation there with Will. I think we understand that part of it.
“What will get us to challenge for the front row? I think maybe after tomorrow or Sunday we'll be able to digest a little bit more and understand better.”
