Penske drivers Josef Newgarden and Will Power have been sent to the back of the Indianapolis 500 grid for 2025 - in addition to a raft of other penalties - following their removal from the final day of qualifying on Sunday.
Both the #2 entry of 2023 and ‘24 event winner Newgarden and the #12 entry of Power were withdrawn from the top-12 shootout after the former car failed technical inspection due to a modification to the rear attenuator - which is an impact structure that cannot be modified.
With Newgarden parked as a result and Power also withdrawn - as, though he had passed inspection before his qualifying run, Penske was aware his car would fail post-run inspection - it ruled Penske out of the pole shoot-out entirely.
This is because its third car, the #3 of Scott McLaughlin, had shunted heavily in pre-qualifying practice and couldn't be readied in time.
Scott McLaughlin with a MASSIVE impact 😬
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) May 18, 2025
The No. 3 car hits the Turn 2 wall in #Indy500 practice. pic.twitter.com/eXBunUAhKp
But while McLaughlin will now keep his 10th place on the grid, there are more sanctions coming to Penske and its two affected entries.
IndyCar has announced that "upon further review" on Sunday and Monday Newgarden and Power will be moved to 32nd and 33rd in the starting order.
"The integrity of the Indianapolis 500 is paramount, and this violation of the IndyCar rule against modification to this part and using it ‘as supplied’ is clear," said IndyCar president Doug Boles.
“The penalty should be more than simply starting where the cars might have qualified anyway, if given the opportunity. The cars belong in the field as two of the fastest 33; however, starting on the tail of the field is the appropriate penalty in this instance.”
Boles' insistence that "the cars belong in the field as two of the fastest 33" is relevant given that one entry - the Dale Coyne Racing car of Jacob Abel - was bumped from the Indy 500 starting field this year.
A wholesale exclusion of the two Penske cars from all qualifying results - which this isn't - would've logically necessitated either Power or Newgarden being removed from the race.
IndyCar did find that the remaining Penske car, McLaughlin's, which did not run in the Sunday qualifying portion, was found to be using "a legal and unmodified attenuator" at the time of its accident.
There have been further sanctions levied against the #2 and the #12 entry.
Both Newgarden and Power have had their team strategists suspended for the remainder of the event, have forfeited their pit positions and have lost the points - two for Newgarden, one for Power - that their Indy 500 qualifying results would've granted them in the championship standings.
Newgarden's strategist is Penske team president Tim Cindric, while Power's is Ron Ruzewski. Both were also suspended last year for the push to pass scandal at the season-opener, though that suspension was imposed by the Penske team internally rather than by the championship itself.
A $100,000 fine has also been issued for each of the entries.
All of this comes against the backdrop that Roger Penske, the eponymous owner of the team, also heads up Penske Entertainment Corporation - which owns both the IndyCar series and the Indy 500 venue Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
This makes any violations by the Penske team a particularly sensitive matter, as was already proven with the push-to-pass St. Petersburg scandal last year - and it is presumably why the "integrity" of the series came up several times in IndyCar's penalty announcement here.
