Might not been known in the US, but Scott McLaughlin whilst driving for Penske in the V8 supercars in Australia was embroiled in one of our sport's biggest cheating scandals. In the 2019 Bathurst 1000 (our Daytona 500 / Indy 500) whilst under a safety car, the second Penske car slowed down and held the field behind him 40 seconds so that the lead Penske car (driven by McLaughlin} could fill with fuel and get fresh tyres without loosing track position. McLaughlin went on to win the race. In the aftermath, and amongst numerous calls to disqualify the team, it was found that the second car was ordered by the team to deliberately slow down, and the team were handed a $250k fine, with the second car penalised to the back of the field. Several weeks later it was found that the motor that was fitted to the 17 car (driven by McLaughlin) in qualifying also had an illegal amount of valve lift, resulting in another $30k fine, and stripping the team of Pole. At the time it caused quite the uproar in Australia with allegations that the only reason that they weren't disqualified due to legal threat. I'm not familiar enough with what happened in this circumstance, just saying that this team cheating is not unheard of.
Freemasons say stuff like, ‘Well, ya know, these actions aren’t inherently ‘evil’ or ‘bad’. I mean, good and evil can be relative and therefore who are you to question what we did to win?
Whether he knew or not, it’s his team, his responsibility. Any boss or leader is responsible for the actions of his or her employees. The fact Penske didn’t hold anyone accountable, and make an example of them makes me think he did know.
Roger Penske looses credibility when those responsible were not fired and drivers who pushed the button should get benched for at least one or two races.
This is gold. Nice to hear Michael's side of the story. The other owners need to unite and tell Penske to sell the series or his racing team. The conflict of interest is off-the-scale bad.
I’d like to think Roger didn’t know. Based on his complaints of his drivers being wrecked, and his defense of his drivers who have wrecked others, I’m not sure that the culture in that organization is a healthy one. I’ll leave it at this, that Penske Racing has done damage to themselves by not being transparent, by making excuses. Seems symptomatic of a bigger problem.
I was sitting in the old Tower Terrace section at Indy in I believe 1990 when Michael passed Rick Mears on the outside going into turn 1 with 10 laps to go and the crowd went wild. The following lap Mears passed Michael in the same exact spot on the outside of turn 1. The crowd erupted. One of my best memories at Indy. Michael was a beast behind the wheel. The year Micheal went to F1 I didn't miss a race on satellite T.V. I was his biggest fan. Too bad the F1 career didn't work out for Michael.
The cheating incident was very bad. Penske was punished accordingly. They got severely penalized in a way thst hasn’t been seen in decades. 2 DQs fines and suspending key personnel for the most important month on the calendar. What else other than banning drivers or team members permanently can they do?
I agree with Michael. Roger has always been very innovative especially in the Kart days when he helped right the rule book. . But that's racing own up too it
Fair statements by Michael and 100% agree they absolutely would have used it at Long Beach. The drivers made the situation far worse with their BS press conference trying to spin it. Michael is right they should have come clean-this issue is far from over at this point Indycar is looking at the telemetry of every single restart and probably going back into last season also. Penske should take full responsibility and sell the team or the series which is in very bad shape and this mess is magnified 1000X since it is the series owner
a few years ago I would have agreed to it, but I think some people wondered with 'owning' the track and the series, if he might have turned over the operations a bit and not be as into the day to day, I mean Roger is getting up there in years, but I have to think Mike is right. Someone should know to ask him before doing something like this.
Not convinced Indycar forgot to turn on push-to-pass in morning warm up. Teams test theirs at that time to ensure it is working properly and would have complained immediately. I believe a whistle-blower blew the whistle and this was the method used to validate the whistle-blower.
Thank you for a great video and the information loved racing all of my life but know days not so much . It really breaks my heart so much to see what is happening in racing know days I’m not sure of what is going to happen in the future of professional racing very sad . God bless one and all Kenny wallce Michael Mario Andretti
For died in the wool IndyCar fans, I'm sure it's move on. For a lot of other people, this is a real black eye on IndyCar and Penske. I think they've done all the punishing they need to do. But they got to do a lot of work before many people are going to really really trust IndyCar again.
I think people are misled because they drivers told their "stories" about what they said happened. However, there is ownership in the stories, which when I hear their stories, I hear them saying "we did cheat and we did get caught." It couldn't have been said more loudly or clearly. They determined it was an acceptable option and well worth the risk.
I think the interesting part is that first Will Power didn't use it and Scott barely used it. It also did coincidentally match up with Thermal and the temporary rule change on restarts for that race. To me they needed all this stuff to line up for the stories to be true and they do line up. I don't buy this was an attempt to cheat. I believe it was a major breakdown in communication across the team which is embarrassing. One guy loads the software on all the cars and one guy per car communicates to the driver about these things. So really you only need to guys to screw up and you have this happen. I'm sure if RP found evidence that it was malicious the responsible party would have been terminated.
Tech inspection didn’t catch it. They should have caught it. If it got past tech inspection, tech inspectors should be called on the carpet for it. They’re not doing their job. And who knows what else they are missing that might be safety related.
The racing seemed better with the older cars. Yes some not so much but I like a drivers car. By that I mean the driver skill means a lot. Now it seems the car is an engineers car. The engineers tell the drivers what to do like a robot and they do it. It’s more boring a lot more now as well, at least to me.
How do you become that consistent at being that dominant over 50 years, using multiple different engineers and different cars without doing something shady. If Roger Penske is the "honest guy" that everyone thinks he is then when they got caught, and whether it was an accident or on purpose, he should have told his employees at Indycar (because he does own the very entity that busted him) "be quiet and I'll make a public announcement." And in that Public announcement, he could have said "Its been brought to our attention by my organization that there was a discrepancy with some technical aspects of the car, therefor in the fairness of the sport we at Penske Racing is voluntarily withdrawing our win and awarding it Pato O'Ward's team." If Roger had done that he would have come out looking like a Hero. Instead, he pulled the same shit he pulled on Mario Andretti in 1981 at Indy, and the same crap he pulled on Kevin Cogan in 1982, Its about Roger and his greed. Instead, he allows himself to "get busted" by his own officiating body. Keep in mind that the fine went right back to him too. He basically wrote himself the check.
Everybody cheats from grassroots to the professional ranks sometimes people get breaks and sometimes they don’t if you ain’t looking for an advantage over your competitors, you’re not working hard enough
How much longer is the media (Wallace) going to carry on with this story? It's Indy 500 time and now is the time to prepare for the race, not rehash old news, not as old as Wallace who brings nothing to this "story".
If he didn't know he's still responsible. He half owned the V8 Supercars team DJR PENSKE which Scotty Mac used to drive for. They were caught and disqualified from their Bathurst win when it was found their engines were illegal. DJR had never been caught cheating in their decades of racing until Penske came down here. I think Penske have a culture of cheating from the top down.
Years ago Honda rented satellite time and tuned their suspensions and engines in formula 1 and I have no doubt that's being done in all major racing programs.
Penske has always been a cheater , for many many years , so if you think they are this squeaky clean organization, ah they aren't. The fact they did get caught and were penalized speaks volumes that just because Penske owns the series , doesn't mean he gets a free pass all the time
Was never a fan of Roger. I lost respect for him when in 1993 or 94 when he and Mercedes developed an engine just for the Indy 500 . Indy cars were under CART at the time but the 500 I believe was a USAC event. Because of it he developed an engine based on USAC rules which gave him an advantage. All other teams had engines based on CART rules. He was part owner of CART he said screw CART for that one race. I believe this was the beginning of the split.
Today’s Cup cars are spec cars. Just another way for NASCAR to make money by licensing companies for the right to produce parts. High tech race cars are boring.
Now I have to really question the finish to last years Indy 500! That was the perfect place to have this happen! Yet no one is even bringing that up?! Hello! This is Roger Penske we're talking about here.
Anyone older than 40 is thinking that. RP has been a "rule stretcher" all my life. Thanks for clarifying that they thought about that but with that attitude I think it's you that needs that life. Ingnorance is not a crime! Stupidity is and being butthurt about an honest point reflects on you buddy😑
He has made a major improvement at that worn out ficitly still making improvements very awesome place every thing is good there will always be a Penske fan❤
The series is in trouble no question, sponsorship is a tough sell with money pouring into nascar/nhra/wec that could otherwise be in indycar. If i was a potential sponsor and saw the series owner at the center of this mess? yeah thats a pass and i start talking to WEC teams
@@RonnieMilford-sg4uj The faculty is state of the ART!! Tony George spent 200 million on the track in the 20 years before in improvements. Penske painted some bathrooms and cleaned them up. He did a lot of stuff that needed done but are not huge but they cost a lot. But the track was not paved. Didn't need it. The fences and safer barrier were done well before Penske ownership.
@@SuperBuzz71 so cheating is okay as long as it’s done in increments? What a bozo statement. And McLaughlin used it for 1.9 seconds, Newgarden used it repeatedly.
Michael does not have a poker face at all , still my favorite Indy driver
Absolute legend.
Might not been known in the US, but Scott McLaughlin whilst driving for Penske in the V8 supercars in Australia was embroiled in one of our sport's biggest cheating scandals.
In the 2019 Bathurst 1000 (our Daytona 500 / Indy 500) whilst under a safety car, the second Penske car slowed down and held the field behind him 40 seconds so that the lead Penske car (driven by McLaughlin} could fill with fuel and get fresh tyres without loosing track position.
McLaughlin went on to win the race. In the aftermath, and amongst numerous calls to disqualify the team, it was found that the second car was ordered by the team to deliberately slow down, and the team were handed a $250k fine, with the second car penalised to the back of the field.
Several weeks later it was found that the motor that was fitted to the 17 car (driven by McLaughlin) in qualifying also had an illegal amount of valve lift, resulting in another $30k fine, and stripping the team of Pole.
At the time it caused quite the uproar in Australia with allegations that the only reason that they weren't disqualified due to legal threat.
I'm not familiar enough with what happened in this circumstance, just saying that this team cheating is not unheard of.
Sin on Sunday. Confess on Monday. Repeat.
Freemasons say stuff like, ‘Well, ya know, these actions aren’t inherently ‘evil’ or ‘bad’. I mean, good and evil can be relative and therefore who are you to question what we did to win?
Whether he knew or not, it’s his team, his responsibility. Any boss or leader is responsible for the actions of his or her employees. The fact Penske didn’t hold anyone accountable, and make an example of them makes me think he did know.
Suspensions are accountability.
Roger Penske looses credibility when those responsible were not fired and drivers who pushed the button should get benched for at least one or two races.
This is gold. Nice to hear Michael's side of the story. The other owners need to unite and tell Penske to sell the series or his racing team. The conflict of interest is off-the-scale bad.
Push to pass is just plain stupid to begin with. Just give them the extra HP all the time. The cars are grossly underpowered in the first place.
and the suffer cronic understeer
You obviously don't understand the dynamics of racing or the purpose of push to pass.
Push to pass makes it fake.
It’s juvenile, video game-ish. Fake.
Give them 1500cc and have racing not faking
Great job Kenny.
Michael Andretti 🏆
I’d like to think Roger didn’t know. Based on his complaints of his drivers being wrecked, and his defense of his drivers who have wrecked others, I’m not sure that the culture in that organization is a healthy one. I’ll leave it at this, that Penske Racing has done damage to themselves by not being transparent, by making excuses. Seems symptomatic of a bigger problem.
Great interview.
Thank you.
☮
I was sitting in the old Tower Terrace section at Indy in I believe 1990 when Michael passed Rick Mears on the outside going into turn 1 with 10 laps to go and the crowd went wild. The following lap Mears passed Michael in the same exact spot on the outside of turn 1. The crowd erupted. One of my best memories at Indy. Michael was a beast behind the wheel. The year Micheal went to F1 I didn't miss a race on satellite T.V. I was his biggest fan. Too bad the F1 career didn't work out for Michael.
Kenny that interview was as badass as the Andretti’s are.
Two Fast Families!!
Michael Andretti my all-time Favorite CART driver.
Class act - it's in his DNA!
The cheating incident was very bad. Penske was punished accordingly. They got severely penalized in a way thst hasn’t been seen in decades. 2 DQs fines and suspending key personnel for the most important month on the calendar. What else other than banning drivers or team members permanently can they do?
They got severely penalized ? Good Joke !
I agree with Michael. Roger has always been very innovative especially in the Kart days when he helped right the rule book. . But that's racing own up too it
Thank you Michael !
Push to pass worked like a charm at the Indy 500 this year!
Fair statements by Michael and 100% agree they absolutely would have used it at Long Beach. The drivers made the situation far worse with their BS press conference trying to spin it. Michael is right they should have come clean-this issue is far from over at this point Indycar is looking at the telemetry of every single restart and probably going back into last season also. Penske should take full responsibility and sell the team or the series which is in very bad shape and this mess is magnified 1000X since it is the series owner
I think mostly Newgarden and Cindric look bad after this. But, in my opinion, they are most at fault anyway.
@@STC987 They all look bad
@@huracanmedia1661 mostly those two because they are clearly the biggest liars and full of crap.
Agree that Penske shouldn't own both the team and the series. One must be divested to restore credibility.
@@huracanmedia1661 mostly the fraud Indy 500 champion and Cindric
Great interview, I agree entirely w Michael on this ..stand up guy !
Just come clean and move on …
I can't imagine that Roger Penske does not know everything that is going on. He is like the Emperor from Star Wars.
a few years ago I would have agreed to it, but I think some people wondered with 'owning' the track and the series, if he might have turned over the operations a bit and not be as into the day to day, I mean Roger is getting up there in years, but I have to think Mike is right. Someone should know to ask him before doing something like this.
Not convinced Indycar forgot to turn on push-to-pass in morning warm up. Teams test theirs at that time to ensure it is working properly and would have complained immediately. I believe a whistle-blower blew the whistle and this was the method used to validate the whistle-blower.
Respectfully done interview. Nuff said.
The only person that should have spoken about this should have been Roger Penske, not his drivers or anyone else.
"Unfair Advantage"? Maybe, maybe not, but it does call into question his ownership of the series AND its most important track----
And he owns part of or has major stakes in the company that supplies their Chevy engines.
Thank you for a great video and the information loved racing all of my life but know days not so much .
It really breaks my heart so much to see what is happening in racing know days I’m not sure of what is going to happen in the future of professional racing very sad .
God bless one and all Kenny wallce Michael Mario Andretti
I don't think this is all of the story. I highly recommend reading the Racer magazine article
For died in the wool IndyCar fans, I'm sure it's move on. For a lot of other people, this is a real black eye on IndyCar and Penske. I think they've done all the punishing they need to do. But they got to do a lot of work before many people are going to really really trust IndyCar again.
I think people are misled because they drivers told their "stories" about what they said happened. However, there is ownership in the stories, which when I hear their stories, I hear them saying "we did cheat and we did get caught." It couldn't have been said more loudly or clearly. They determined it was an acceptable option and well worth the risk.
I think the interesting part is that first Will Power didn't use it and Scott barely used it. It also did coincidentally match up with Thermal and the temporary rule change on restarts for that race. To me they needed all this stuff to line up for the stories to be true and they do line up. I don't buy this was an attempt to cheat. I believe it was a major breakdown in communication across the team which is embarrassing. One guy loads the software on all the cars and one guy per car communicates to the driver about these things. So really you only need to guys to screw up and you have this happen. I'm sure if RP found evidence that it was malicious the responsible party would have been terminated.
Tech inspection didn’t catch it. They should have caught it. If it got past tech inspection, tech inspectors should be called on the carpet for it. They’re not doing their job. And who knows what else they are missing that might be safety related.
Does this mean that the tech process is just broke and they don't check the Quote Software at all?
Sounded like there was no procedure in place to check software at the time. Sounds like they made one now
"If you're not cheating, you're not trying." - Ancient F1 Proverb.
If Penske fired someone Andretti would hire that person in an instant.
no he wouldn't shut up
no he wouldn't shut up
The racing seemed better with the older cars. Yes some not so much but I like a drivers car. By that I mean the driver skill means a lot. Now it seems the car is an engineers car. The engineers tell the drivers what to do like a robot and they do it. It’s more boring a lot more now as well, at least to me.
I didn't even recognize him until he spoke
What is push to pass?
How do you become that consistent at being that dominant over 50 years, using multiple different engineers and different cars without doing something shady. If Roger Penske is the "honest guy" that everyone thinks he is then when they got caught, and whether it was an accident or on purpose, he should have told his employees at Indycar (because he does own the very entity that busted him) "be quiet and I'll make a public announcement." And in that Public announcement, he could have said "Its been brought to our attention by my organization that there was a discrepancy with some technical aspects of the car, therefor in the fairness of the sport we at Penske Racing is voluntarily withdrawing our win and awarding it Pato O'Ward's team." If Roger had done that he would have come out looking like a Hero. Instead, he pulled the same shit he pulled on Mario Andretti in 1981 at Indy, and the same crap he pulled on Kevin Cogan in 1982, Its about Roger and his greed. Instead, he allows himself to "get busted" by his own officiating body. Keep in mind that the fine went right back to him too. He basically wrote himself the check.
Indy kinda died when AJ Foyt couldn't drive or get out of the car and bang on the transmission to get it to shift with a hammer.
Turns out "The Captain" Penske is actually more of a pirate 😂
I BELIEVE EVERYTHING MICHAEL SAYS. NO QUESTION ABOUT IT.
Everybody cheats from grassroots to the professional ranks sometimes people get breaks and sometimes they don’t if you ain’t looking for an advantage over your competitors, you’re not working hard enough
Anything that limits the power or boosts it temporarily is rubbish. The Drivers foot is the only limiter for power
Get the stupid wings off the cars and then there is no need for push to pass. Too much turbulence off the wings. Not enough driver in the formula.
How much longer is the media (Wallace) going to carry on with this story? It's Indy 500 time and now is the time to prepare for the race, not rehash old news, not as old as Wallace who brings nothing to this "story".
If he didn't know he's still responsible. He half owned the V8 Supercars team DJR PENSKE which Scotty Mac used to drive for. They were caught and disqualified from their Bathurst win when it was found their engines were illegal. DJR had never been caught cheating in their decades of racing until Penske came down here. I think Penske have a culture of cheating from the top down.
Also….why offer a contract to one driver knowing you were pursuing another. 🙄
Ryan preece is a superstar 🕺👊🧢🪠☝️🪮
Looks a lot like Mario's trophy room in PA.
Michael has quite a few of his own. 42 Indy car wins and 1 championship. In comparison Al Unser Jr has 31 wins and 2 championships.
When has an Andretti ever admitted anything?
So, did Roger Penske know they were doing this? My guess is not.
Irrelevant. He hires these people. He owns it as much as they do. Right or wrong, the buck stops with the boss.
MAYBE YOU ALL SHOULD LISTEN TO JR HILDEBRAND’s podcast and AJ Foyt.
Years ago Honda rented satellite time and tuned their suspensions and engines in formula 1 and I have no doubt that's being done in all major racing programs.
Herman rules
Another racing drama story. Everyone does it ,all race teams ,in every form of racing do this ..let's be honest Kenny. 😊
Move on from this. You can comment and say what you think they did or didn't so at the end of day talk about something else.
Penske has always been a cheater , for many many years , so if you think they are this squeaky clean organization, ah they aren't. The fact they did get caught and were penalized speaks volumes that just because Penske owns the series , doesn't mean he gets a free pass all the time
Was never a fan of Roger. I lost respect for him when in 1993 or 94 when he and Mercedes developed an engine just for the Indy 500 . Indy cars were under CART at the time but the 500 I believe was a USAC event. Because of it he developed an engine based on USAC rules which gave him an advantage. All other teams had engines based on CART rules. He was part owner of CART he said screw CART for that one race. I believe this was the beginning of the split.
Today’s Cup cars are spec cars. Just another way for NASCAR to make money by licensing companies for the right to produce parts. High tech race cars are boring.
Am I to believe that Michael never cheated? Or just haven't got caught.
I don't believe he said he never cheated, just that if he got caught, he'd own up to it.
I don't know. Whatever. Its over, I don't care anymore, let's move on
Now I have to really question the finish to last years Indy 500! That was the perfect place to have this happen! Yet no one is even bringing that up?!
Hello! This is Roger Penske we're talking about here.
They looked at data from last year already. Get a life and think before you post.
Anyone older than 40 is thinking that. RP has been a "rule stretcher" all my life.
Thanks for clarifying that they thought about that but with that attitude I think it's you that needs that life.
Ingnorance is not a crime! Stupidity is and being butthurt about an honest point reflects on you buddy😑
@reality4083 Seriously!
Roger thought all he had to do was repave IMS and renovate the bathrooms once he bought the series.
He has made a major improvement at that worn out ficitly still making improvements very awesome place every thing is good there will always be a Penske fan❤
The series is in trouble no question, sponsorship is a tough sell with money pouring into nascar/nhra/wec that could otherwise be in indycar. If i was a potential sponsor and saw the series owner at the center of this mess? yeah thats a pass and i start talking to WEC teams
@@RonnieMilford-sg4uj The faculty is state of the ART!! Tony George spent 200 million on the track in the 20 years before in improvements. Penske painted some bathrooms and cleaned them up. He did a lot of stuff that needed done but are not huge but they cost a lot. But the track was not paved. Didn't need it. The fences and safer barrier were done well before Penske ownership.
@@RonnieMilford-sg4uj what’s a ficitly?
@@STC987 Usually it doesn't take much to figure that out , but then their is you.
Penske is the biggest cheat in racing
Cindric Blaney and Logano might end up disqualified sometime later this year
Penske wouldn’t cheat?!! Kenny!! Then I’m not old and grey either !! 😂
More Andretti whining. 1.9 seconds does not make a 90 lap race. No wonder F1 doesn't want anything to do with the Andretti name.
It’s for position not time. I think you are smart enough to know that. Check your emotional bias and think about it.
@@SuperBuzz71 so cheating is okay as long as it’s done in increments? What a bozo statement. And McLaughlin used it for 1.9 seconds, Newgarden used it repeatedly.
You approve cheating ? you would be crying if Andretti did it.
Wonder how many indy 500s wins penske cheated at ?
2 Crybabies 1 podcast. Both of you come from great families, but ride the coat tails of family members.
Yeah, Michael didn’t accomplish anything. Only the all time race winner in CART.
@@STC987 Why didn't he buy the series? Michael Andretti just cries. Only two people could have kept IndyCar going, Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi.