Deposed Team Penske President Tim Cindric Returns To IndyCar Team

In a truly remarkable comeback story, Tim Cindric returns to Team Penske in 2026, nine months after the longtime Team Penske President was dismissed from the operation by team owner Roger Penske prior to last year’s 109^th Indianapolis 500.

Instead of guiding the overall operation, Cindric returns to the timing stand as race strategist for Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin.

For Cindric, it’s a role he cherishes because he is back in the competitive environment of a race without the responsibilities and obligations of being the team president.

Jonathan Diuguid assumed the role of President of Team Penske last July. Diuguid was hired by Cindric after he graduated from North Carolina State University.

Tim Cindric’s Remarkable Rise From The Ashes

If the Phoenix rose from the ashes, Cindric’s return to pit lane in IndyCar fittingly comes in Phoenix, Arizona on February 18, the second day of IndyCar’s two-day preseason Spring Training.

“The bottom line is I’m going to be Scott McLaughlin’s race strategist,” Cindric told me on Thursday, January 29 before the team released its list of race strategists for its three IndyCar drivers in 2026. “JD (Diuguid) will direct the traffic, and I will try to contribute in a positive way.

“I take a lot of pride in Jonathan’s career because I hired him right out of school. I watched his career move forward and I was very happy when he was chosen as the next one up. I helped promote him along the way.

“Our relationship is a good reason why this will work.”

The Backstory Of Tim Cindric’s Return

When Cindric, along with Team Penske’s IndyCar Managing Director Ron Ruzewski and IndyCar General Manager Kyle Moyer were dismissed by team owner Roger Penske on May 21, 2025, it seemed unfathomable that any of these three would one day return to the team.

Penske also owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar. Because he also owns the most famous Indy 500 team in history, Penske took firm action by dismissing the three key executives after two of Team Penske’s three entries failed technical inspection during qualifying for the 2025 Indianapolis 500. The infraction was for unapproved modifications to the rear attenuator on the race cars for two-time Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden and 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power.

McLaughlin had crashed in the final practice session before final round of qualifications and he started 12^th. Newgarden and Power were not allowed to make a qualification attempt in the Fast 12 and had to start 32^nd and 33^rd in the 33-car starting field.

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Moyer was the first of the three to return to IndyCar when he was hired by Arrow McLaren as director of competition at the end of June 2025. Ruzewski was named team principal at Andretti Global on September 24, 2025.

Meantime, Cindric was considering what he wanted to do in the future. That included retiring from racing or returning to an IndyCar Series team as a race strategist.

“Six months ago, this isn’t something I thought I would have wanted to do,” Cindric told me. “But at the end of the year, I reflected and thought if I wanted to retire from racing or do something to remain relevant in 2026.

“I had people reach out and talk to me about a lot of different things, but most of them I had already done and didn’t want to do over again.

“But I did miss the competitive side of being at the race track.”

Decision Time For Tim Cindric

Cindric considered a weekend role of race strategy and decided that was the best way to remain in IndyCar, a sport that he has grown up with.

Other teams asked Cindric about joining their operations in that role. But Cindric remained in touch with Penske, even after he was dismissed by the team owner. Cindric sent a note to Diuguid to express his interest in doing racing strategy.

“I talked to Roger back in August when we were finalizing our separation, and he asked me what I thought I was going to do,” Cindric recalled. “I told him other people had reached out to me about race strategy, and I told him it wasn’t something I was really interested in.”

Cindric would later change his mind and decided to return to IndyCar as a race strategist. Because he had told Penske he wasn’t interested in pursuing that earlier, he wanted to let Penske know that he had changed his mind.

“I sent JD (Diuguid) a note the first week in January and told him I was pursuing the position of race strategist in IndyCar,” Cindric told me. “I said in my note, ‘You probably have your bases covered on this front and if you don’t, I would be open to a conversation because I admire the people on the team.

“I wanted to let them know before I made a final decision.

“He texted me and said, I would like to sit down and talk to you about what we have going on. I think this best place if you are interested in doing that is on Scotty’s car.

“We worked it out.

“Roger Penske reached out and said he would be fully supportive if we could work it out.”

And with that, Cindric has returned to Team Penske, where he played a key role in some of the greatest accomplishments in IndyCar from 2000 to 2025 before he was suddenly dismissed.

Tim Cindric Gets Roger Penske’s Support

“This obviously wouldn’t happen if Roger wasn’t supportive and it wouldn’t have happened if I had not reached out to those guys either,” Cindric said.

“It was obvious after all the success we had together, neither one of us wanted our relationship to end the way it did in May.

“You can’t forget what happened, but you have to go forward in life.”

And together, Tim Cindric, Roger Penske move forward in a new role that allows Cindric to play a key role in a Team Penske driver’s success with Scott McLaughlin behind the wheel.

“For me, it all started as a race strategist,” Cindric said. “I started doing that in 1995 with Bobby Rahal. I enjoy the competitive side because you are more of the coach than you are the boss.

“This is a natural progression of my career because I have no other role on the team. JD (Diuguid) is the boss, he has the role of president.

“This is a good balance for me because I get to pursue other things in life and do this on race weekends. I might be a little rusty and it might take time for Scott McLaughlin and us to click, but hopefully we can have a lot of success together.”

Rather than retire from motorsports, Cindric decided to return to the timing stand as the man in charge of McLaughlin’s race strategy.

For McLaughlin, he didn’t find out that Cindric was back until 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 29.

“I’ve always felt Scott is a very capable guy and he can do this at the highest level,” Cindric said. “I look forward trying to get the most out of him and hopefully I can be a positive influence for him moving forward.”

Roger Penske has always stressed that at Team Penske, it’s all about the team and after a nine-month break, Tim Cindric is back on the team for IndyCar’s first comeback story of 2026.