Will Power blames “pressure from outside” for Penske firings before Indy 500

Will Power insists that Team Penske were forced into firings key executives due to pressure from frustrated rivals.

Roger Penske dispensed with team president Tim Cindric, IndyCar managing director Ron Ruzewski and IndyCar general manager Kyle Moyer in the fallout from Sunday’s Indy 500 qualifying controversy.

After last year’s ‘push to pass’ issue, Penske failed a technical inspection last weekend on the cars of Josef Newgarden and Power, prohibiting them from qualifying.

Roger Penske had to talk to angry rivals to make promises about gaining back credibility.

The three major departures from the team mean Newgarden, Power and Scott McLaughlin will have new race strategists and lead engineers for the Indy 500.

Newgarden and Power are starting at the back of the 33-car grid, their punishment for failing the technical inspection due to illegal modifications to rear attenuators on both cars.

But Power expressed his sympathy for the executives whose jobs have been lost in the fallout.

“It’s kind of a shock and a pity,” Power said.

“They’re all extremely good at their job. It was just the pressure from outside...

“I guess Roger had to make a tough decision, but I can tell you these were very credible people. They really were.

“As you know, the infraction was very minor. It wasn’t a performance gain.”

Power added about Roger Penske: “I feel bad for him.

“He’s in a very tough spot in that situation.

“You could tell it was heavy on him. Tough, tough for him to have to do that.

“I think Roger moves forward very quickly - he makes decisions, he moves forward, doesn’t dwell on it.

“Starts looking at what is absolutely best for the team and everyone to move forward.

“That’s Roger. That’s why he’s so successful.

“He’s not going to sit and spend a month worrying about what happened.

“I think he’s ‘how can we fix this and let’s move forward and make sure it doesn’t happen again.’”