Team Penske’s 2025 IndyCar campaign has stumbled badly – plagued by underperformance, internal upheaval, and regulatory scandals. Can Penske salvage anything from this season?
“It’s not even a story anymore it’s just normal.” – Will Buxton on Team Penske before the Mid Ohio race had even begun.
Truer words haven’t been spoken by Will Buxton this IndyCar season… Team Penske hasn’t just faltered, they have fallen from grace. We wrapped up our 10th race of the 17 race IndyCar season with yet another disastrous result for Team Penske.
Yet another DNF for their ‘golden boy’ Josef Newgarden, a DNF for Will Power as a result, and a disappointing sub- top 10 finish for Scott McLaughlin.
This weekend isn’t the only disappointing result for the team, so let’s take stock of just HOW bad 2025 has been for Team Penske.
Where did it go wrong for Team Penske?
- Inconsistent finishes: The team hasn’t scored a win or consistent top‑5 finishes. Each driver has only scored one podium with only a handful of top 10 finishes spread across the 3. Notably, the worst performance is from the ‘star’ of Penske, Josef Newgarden, while the best performance has been from Will Power… the driver allegedly on the chopping block.
- Attenuator-gate impacting team leadership: In case we needed a reminder, at this year’s Indianapolis 500, Newgarden and Power were found with illegally smoothed rear-attenuators leading to both being dropped to the back of the grid. The scandal triggered the firing of key leadership figures: Tim Cindric, Ron Ruzewski, and Kyle Moyer. These positions were only just filled nearly 5 weeks later during the Mid-Ohio race weekend… we’ll dive into this later.
The Team Penske Leadership Problem
Admittedly, some of the performance issues that the team has faced this year have been due to driver error. Case and point is Josef’s lockup and crash at the start of the Mid Ohio race. I’d like to take the stance that there is a bigger picture at play throwing Team Penske off of their game.
Team leadership, especially after the Indianapolis 500, has been just short of nonexistent. At the end of the day Team Penske is a company. Just like any company – if you fire the C-Suite team and executives everyone is going to feel it from the VP’s down to the interns.
Ousting team president Tim Cindric, managing director Ron Ruzewski, and general manager Kyle Moyer essentially opened holes in positions that impacted Penske’s strategic and operational cohesion. This massive change disrupted the team’s established lines of authority and institutional memory. A smooth hierarchy of decision-making, trusted by drivers, engineers, and crew, suddenly became ambiguous. When leadership transitions mid‑season, it’s more than just new faces, it impacts culture, communication, and accountability.
The New Guard
Jonathan Diuguid and Travis Law, both veteran engineers promoted from Penske’s sportscar programs, have filled two of those key roles left open after the 500. So, great! Problem solved! Right?
Not at all, actually. Diuguid and Law have the task of realigning strategy, and rebuilding trust across every level across the organization. This is simply a problem and a transition that is not going to be solved in 2025. On top of that, this doesn’t solve the performance problem now – the small mistakes plaguing the 2025 Penske operation.
Is Josef Newgarden still the future of Team Penske?
This is the question that has been bouncing around in my mind race after race this year. Josef is painted to fans as the star of the show, superman, Mr. Penske Perfect in driver form. Just look at how IndyCar themselves presented him prior to the start of the season.
However, he seems to be struggling the most out of the three drivers at the team (Scott McLaughlin and Will Power). There is, of course, the idea that with Josef as the focal point of the team publicly, behind the scenes the focus on course correcting his performance could be the cause of the 3 and 12 car’s missteps. Not to directly place blame on Josef, himself, but when Team Penske and IndyCar’s star is struggling… it is only logical that the team at large will shift focus away from their other two drivers.
Although members of his crew declined to comment on how Josef is feeling coming out of 3 back to back DNFs, it is clear that these results would shake anyone’s confidence. Every time I have come face-to-face with Newgarden (namely just days after Attenuator-gate), he has been the definition of stoicism and poise. It begs the question, what is going on behind the scenes? What conversations is Josef having with Team Penske? Could we see staffing changes on HIS car this season? Alternatively, does Josef simply need a reset?
Or – maybe the reset wouldn’t even help. It’s possible Josef just isn’t the same driver he was just last year, and the Penske car isn’t doing him any favors either. The combo that once felt unbeatable now looks flat-out uncompetitive, and that’s a tough reality to ignore.
What’s next for Team Penske?
…hopefully a redo button.
Team Penske earned themselves the catchphrase “Penske Perfect”, and now find themselves at a crossroads. The blend of subpar race results, leadership shakeup, and simple missteps has transformed a dynasty into a cautionary tale in 2025.
As a fan of the sport, it is definitely difficult to see 3 great racing drivers struggle as much as they have this season. Team Penske has Indianapolis 500 wins, IndyCar championship titles, and decades of experience amongst them. Will Power even managed to get the team’s 700th Pole Position recently. I certainly hope that a comeback to fighting shape is in the works.
With new leadership in play, in a few races we may see Penske back to their proper form fighting in the top 10. If not? Change is most certainly coming. Who knows… the David Malukas to Penske narrative may have more salt to it sooner rather than later.
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IndyCar returns July 12 for the double header in Iowa.
Feature Image: IndyCar Media Centre
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