Tim Cindric returns to Penske
Tim Cindric’s next job in the sport will be with a familiar group as Team Penske’s former president has accepted an offer to return and serve as Scott McLaughlin’s race strategist with the No. 3 Team Penske Chevy IndyCar program.
The surprising development comes with a role that will be limited to race weekends, which aligns with Cindric’s desire to stay in motor racing, but in a part-time capacity that allows him to dedicate his energies to family and other business interests. It’s a shift Cindric initiated at the end of 2024 where he stepped back from running all of Roger Penske’s racing programs – other than NASCAR – for the better part of a quarter century to concentrate solely on IndyCar.
After his Penske exit following the contretemps in May, Cindric took the rest of the year to decide which path he wanted to pursue and fielded a number of inquiries to run a range of racing teams. A chance outreach to Team Penske president Jonathan Diuguid led to the building of a new bridge that was never anticipated.
“At the end of the year, I said to myself, 'I need to make a decision here and either retire from racing and just go on and go about my life, or I need to do something in ’26,'” Cindric told RACER. “I felt like I needed to do something, but I still wanted to stay true to the fact that I wanted flexibility in life. I'm not opposed to working full-time, but I’ve been there, done that in a lot of ways, and I hadn't really found anything that was different than what I had done before.
“So I started considering some of these opportunities that I had to go back and just work on the weekends, or do some part-time stuff here and there, because I missed the competition. Six months ago, I probably would have told you that this wasn't something that was in the cards, Then I got some offers where I thought that might not be a bad gig, all things considered, and when I left [Penske], I told them I really didn’t think I’d be looking to come back.
“But I changed my mind and wanted to tell them first, so after the first of the year, I sent JD [Diuguid] a note that basically said, ‘Hey, reaching out to you to let you know that I'm pursuing a path to where I'm seriously considering being a race strategist.’ And I told him, ‘I feel as though you probably already have your bases covered, but If not, I'd be open to a conversation.’”
Diuguid was open to having a conversation. Despite the unfortunate manner in which their relationship met its end, Cindric’s decades of winning championships and Indianapolis 500s as a race strategist was too much to overlook as the team attempts to recapture its competitive edge.
“The way I would describe it is, it's my job to always make sure the best players are going to play,” Diuguid said. “And Tim's used that phrase before, as well as Roger. Just because a decision may bring on some difficult conversations, it doesn't make it the wrong one. Much like everybody else who is going to be surprised by this, I was surprised that Tim reached out, but I was glad that he did.
“We've known each other for a long time, and professionally, we didn't see eye to eye on several occasions, but that that's going to happen over the period of time that we had, and I think that's what built the relationship for him to make that call and then be able to have quite an open discussion about what it could be or what it couldn't be. And in the end, it was definitely the right thing for us.
“We’ve done a lot of restructuring in the team, and being able to bring somebody like Tim back on board puts us in a very strong position, and can allow us to have more capacity to focus on all the stuff that we've been trying to do through the middle of summer and through the winter, to put the team back to where it needs to be. I couldn't be more excited about it, to be honest.”
Cindric was McLaughlin’s first point of contact at Team Penske when he was an emerging talent in the Australian Supercars series. Cindric would play a central role in bringing the New Zealander to IndyCar after he won three Supercars titles and the Bathurst 1000 for DJR Team Penske, and in his previous role McLaughlin knew Cindric as the team-wide leader who bore more responsibilities than any other person.
Cindric was McLaughlin’s first point of contact at Team Penske when he was an emerging talent in the Australian Supercars series. Cindric would play a central role in bringing the New Zealander to IndyCar after he won three Supercars titles and the Bathurst 1000 for DJR Team Penske, and in his previous role McLaughlin knew Cindric as the team-wide leader who bore more responsibilities than any other person.
Having Cindric on his timing stand, and without the weight of running Team Penske, could be a transformational move as the Kiwi looks to win his first IndyCar championship.
“This feels like the most incredible gift,” McLaughlin said. “I’m tremendously honored to have Tim with us on the Thirsty 3s. He’s achieved so much in this sport already, and to call him part of the Thirsty 3s is kind of weird, but he is one of us and I understand what he's done for our team for many years. Tim is a friend of mine, and now to go into racing and battle with him as a friend, and a guy that's just completely and utterly focused on me, from a race strategy perspective, to have that focus from a guy that's got the competitiveness and tenacity to be the best, it's a huge honor.”
Diuguid saw the pairing of Cindric with McLaughlin as a natural fit.
“Everything is purposeful and the reason we hadn’t announced strategists or anything like that is because we were all taking the time to make sure we made the right decisions,” he said. “And considering all that, putting Tim with Scott means he’s in an extremely strong position. Tim has all the experience and everything needed to succeed and we’re trying to make sure Scott is supported every level that he can be to be as successful as possible.”
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