As IndyCar attempts to grow globally, Fox analyst James Hinchcliffe believes Roger Penske’s conflict of interest is doing the sport a disservice.
Less than a week away from the Indianapolis 500, the event has been rocked by a cheating scandal involving two Penske cars. Hinchcliffe joined this week’s episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast, where he discussed the scandal and what it means for Penske. During the interview, Hinchcliffe was asked if Penske owning the NTT IndyCar Series, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and a top team in the series was a bad look for the sport.
“It’s not a great look,” Hinchcliffe admitted. “I think it’s been a topic of discussion over the last few years. I don’t know of any other professional sporting body where the owner of the sport and the series also owns a team. I don’t think the track part plays a huge element to it, to be honest. I think it’s more having the series and a team that competes in the series under the same ownership, brings up a lot of questions of conflict of interest.”
As a former IndyCar driver and current racing analyst for Fox Sports, Hinchcliffe was asked if he thinks Penske should be able to maintain ownership of the series and a team.
“No, I don’t. From either position,” Hinchcliffe said. “Roger Goodell doesn’t own a football team. Adam Silver doesn’t own a basketball team. I don’t know of any professional sport where that happens. And I think it actually hinders IndyCar’s legitimacy on the global sporting platform, operating the way that we currently are.”
Before the second day of Indy 500 qualifying on Sunday, the cars driven by Josef Newgarden and Will Power were pulled for technical inspection violations. Both Penske-owned cars were found to have modified attenuators. IndyCar rules prohibit alterations on parts received from a single-source supplier to specification, such as attenuators. Soon after the violations were announced, several reporters visited Newgarden’s 2024 Indy 500-winning car in the IMS Museum, where they reported a similarly modified attenuator.
Initially, IndyCar hit Newgarden and Power with minor penalties, allowing both cars to keep the top-12 starting positions they earned during Saturday’s qualifying session. But on Monday, those penalties were augmented and both cars were sent to the final two starting positions of the Indianapolis 500.
On Wednesday, Roger Penske responded to the cheating scandal by firing three members of the team’s senior leadership team: president Tim Cindric, managing director Ron Ruzewski, and general manager Kyle Moyer. In the announcement, Penske said, “Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams.”
The interview with Hinchcliffe was recorded on Tuesday, May 22, one day before Roger Penske announced the drastic leadership changes. Awful Announcing reached out to Fox Sports to see if the news had changed Hinchcliffe’s opinion of Penske’s ownership, but it did not receive an update.
Listen to the full episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast beginning Friday, May 23, which features James Hinchcliffe discussing the Indianapolis 500, Team Penske penalties, his near-fatal crash in 2015, Danica Patrick, and more. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. For more content, subscribe to AA’s YouTube page.