NASCAR Review: Why Team Penske’s Result at Gateway Was Critical After Recent RFK Form

NASCAR Review: Why Team Penske's result at Gateway was critical after recent RFK form

Team Penske had a great run on Sunday in the Cup Series race at the World Wide Technology Raceway. Austin Cindric won the event and Joey Logano came in fifth place. Why these results are crucial for the team because its fellow Ford-backed team RFK Racing has been outperforming it over the past several weeks. As it appears, Team Penske has finally figured out the Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

Helmed by Brad Keselowski, RFK Racing was quick to adapt to the new 2024 Dark Horse car. The team posted multiple runner-up finishes through the first 14 races of the season and even captured the victory flag once. It was clearly pulling ahead of Team Penske, which was struggling with the same car unable to figure out the physics and engineering behind it.

Joey Logano mentioned in an interview last month that his team was continually trying to learn the car and was taking heart from the optimistic performances of RFK Racing drivers. All the hours in the race shop finally yielded results as Cindric pulled ahead to the victory lane. Talking to the press in the aftermath, he did not fail to touch upon RFK Racing’s part in his team’s success.

He said, “It [the win] was super critical for us. I mean, obviously, there’s been the RFKs. Definitely showed some speed from the Ford side and been able to prove, ‘Hey we can run up front and win in this package.’ There’s a lot of conversation about different OEMs and this and that and that’s definitely something we look at as a race team to try and improve and get better.”

Every Team Penske driver is happy to finally see one of their own in the victory lane

For an outfit of Team Penske’s caliber, a victory shouldn’t have been so hard to come by. Unfortunately, it did and took quite the willpower to finally push through the hard luck. Cindric said, “I went to bed last night knowing that I’d be really really disappointed if one of us didn’t win.” Another shocker almost hit the team after Ryan Blaney ran out of fuel from the lead with two laps to go in the race.

Fortunately, Cindric was there to cover for him and inherited the lead. Blaney told the press, “Congrats to the No. 2 team. They did a good job all day. Props to them. Austin. Proud for Team Penske and Ford.” Logano too was quite content with Cindric in the victory lane. “It wasn’t the victory we were hoping for, but a Penske car’s out in victory lane, which I would call a success,” he stated.

Post Edited By: Srijan Mandal
austin cindric Joey Logano Ryan Blaney

About the author

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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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