“I’m Not Going to Promise That”: Austin Cindric Dismisses Excuses for Lack of Penske Pace During Regular Season

NASCAR Cup Series driver Austin Cindric (2) during qualifying for the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Fate has a plan for Team Penske every season. It makes them underperform throughout the year and lifts them to the sky when it matters. However, in 2025, Austin Cindric has led the lines in the battle against this trend. The #2 Ford Mustang driver has kicked off his season on a strong note and spoke to the press in Homestead-Miami about this turn of tables.

He said that there is no excuse for his team not to start a new season in the same form as they finished the old one. “You know, we’ve gone through a lot of different changes with the bodies on the Ford Mustang throughout the years, and it’s taken us time to kind of rehone where our setups need to be,” he noted.

“I feel like Vegas last weekend was a great example of us being able to show up with a good notebook, apply it, and have good results,” he added. Josh Berry won last Sunday’s Cup Series race in Las Vegas. He drives for Wood Brothers Racing, a team that has a technical alliance with Team Penske.
Despite all the confidence and positive results, Cindric made sure to cover his tracks by pointing out, “I’m not going to promise that for every race weekend but I feel like, for us, there’s no excuse not to perform as well as we did to finish the season. So, I think it’s just a continuation of that.”

How have Cindric’s teammates been performing in 2025?

Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano are both NASCAR Cup Series champions. One would expect that they would perform better than Cindric, who is the youngest of the lot. However, Blaney has just two top-10 finishes in the season’s first five races. Logano is faring even worse. He has no top-10 finishes. But the numbers don’t rightly reflect their drives out on track.

Both drivers have come close to securing top finishes on multiple occasions. They’ve just not found the final piece of the puzzle. This is why Logano is continually caught leaving every race track with frustration. He told the press last week ahead of the Vegas race, “Frustrating is the one word that comes to mind.”

“I think I’ve left the race track every single weekend mad at something. Which is — that’s part of racing sometimes.” The Team Penske Fords certainly have the speed to win races. Hopefully, the tides will turn in their favor at Homestead-Miami on Sunday and help one of them reach victory lane.

Post Edited By: Rahul Ahluwalia
austin cindric NASCAR Cup Series Team Penske

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Gowtham Ramalingam

Gowtham is a NASCAR journalist at The SportsRush. Though his affinity for racing stems from Formula 1, he found himself drawn to NASCAR's unparalleled excitement over the years. As a result he has shared his insights and observations by authoring over 3000 articles on the sport. An avid fiction writer, you can find him lost in imaginary worlds when he is not immersed in racing. He hopes to continue savoring the thrill of every lap and race together with his readers for as long as he can.

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