Austin Cindric Breaks Down “Long Overdue” Top Five Finish by the No. 2 Team Penske Crew at Darlington

After a promising 2025 season, Austin Cindric struggled quite a big in the first five races this year, finishing in the top 10 just once. Darlington, however, could prove to be the turning point of his season, with Cindric breathing a huge sigh of relief post-race.

Last season, the Team Penske driver qualified for the playoffs by sealing his third Cup career win, which came at Talladega, and brought the curtain down at P14, with two top-five and five top-10 finishes to his name at the end of the season. By this stage of last year, he had already banked two top-10s at Daytona and Las Vegas. This year, the road has been uphill but going from P12 to P5 on Sunday must have instilled a ton of confidence in him.

Cindric afterwards spoke about how the pace had been there all long, and that results had lagged behind the effort. Two early retirements at Daytona and Phoenix put the No. 2 crew on the back foot, followed by finishes of P26 at Atlanta, P32 at Circuit of the Americas, and P19 at Las Vegas. All they needed was a bit of momentum on their side, and now they have it.

Speaking on the Inside the Race podcast, Cindric said, “For us, it was just the first day we haven’t had anything go wrong all year. We’ve had some really fast race cars, and I don’t want to be that guy, but we haven’t really been the ones taking ourselves out of it.

“If you look at the position in which we made impact for the first four races of the season, it’s been pretty good. It’s just having the points and getting the finishes.”

“Even last weekend at Vegas, I thought our speed was solid. So, like I said, just another reason why today is rewarding for this group, just because I think it’s long overdue. This group’s doing a lot of high-level stuff. I feel like I’m doing a lot of high-level stuff, and that’s what it takes to be able to finish in the top five or top ten in the Cup Series. Yeah, just glad that we’re able to check that box today,” he continued.

Cindric kept his feet on the ground when the talk turned to the pecking order within Team Penske. He pointed to Ryan Blaney doing what he does, cutting through the field and putting pace on display.

Cindric did not duck the comparison, noting Blaney held an edge and turned it into results, as he finished P3. But Cindric also maintained that his own group is operating at a level that can deliver on Sundays. The No. 2 driver joked that they are still “buried in the garage,” not out of the hole, but no longer digging in the wrong direction.