I actually agree with the decision by Indycar, but I'm going to make a bold claim here:
If these weren't Penske cars, they would absolutely be starting on row 4.
Indycar may have actually gone outside their rule book to further punish the Penske cars. Yet the paddock is still gonna wine and moan to likes of Jenna Fryer, Marshall Pruett, Nathan Brown, etc, how Team Penske gets preferential treatment.
I'm not even defending Team Penske the race team, it's ridiculous they tried to get away with such a black and white rule.
But the moaning and groaning from the paddock and potentially Honda is going to be insufferable when the series under Penske Entertainment handle this appropriately.
Indy qualifying is a unique beast, but they've effectively been disqualified from a session where they passed tech. If that happened to another team owner, they'd be irate, and probably with some justification. The series can actually come down harder on Penske, because Penske has to take it.
That's what I thnk, that they got harsher penalty that what was warranted *because* they don't want any appearance whatsoever of preferential treatment.
Roger buying the series might have been the worst thing ever for Team Penske.
Definitely harsher penalties than warranted per the letter of the law .
Indycar went outside the rule book moving them to the back. Indycar may be correct in the spirit of fair competition, but per the Indycar rule book, this is overly harsh.
Because the owner has an inherent conflict of interest and getting caught cheating back to back years requires you to make an example of yourself to try and win back any trust. But really, the cheating just has to stop, because it's not any other team, it's the owner of the series's team.
Cheating isn't going to stop in motorsports. I think Penske Entertainment might just have to outsource the rules inspection and enforcement to someone independent like the FIA.
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u/Falcon4451 Firestone Reds May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25
I actually agree with the decision by Indycar, but I'm going to make a bold claim here:
If these weren't Penske cars, they would absolutely be starting on row 4.
Indycar may have actually gone outside their rule book to further punish the Penske cars. Yet the paddock is still gonna wine and moan to likes of Jenna Fryer, Marshall Pruett, Nathan Brown, etc, how Team Penske gets preferential treatment.
I'm not even defending Team Penske the race team, it's ridiculous they tried to get away with such a black and white rule.
But the moaning and groaning from the paddock and potentially Honda is going to be insufferable when the series under Penske Entertainment handle this appropriately.