Austin Cindric, driver of the second Freightliner Ford, celebrates exhausted after winning the … [+]
Few people had Austin Cindric become Team Penske’s first regular season winner during the Nascar Cup Series season. However, the third-year driver, who has struggled to find consistency, took home the team’s first win of the season at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Cindric defeated teammate and defending Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, who was on track for his first win of 2024 until running out of fuel coming to the white flag. Blaney’s problem allowed Cindric to step up and claim his second career Cup victory.
“I’m an internally motivated person,” Cindric said in his post-race press conference. “This isn’t fun if I’m not winning. As you can imagine, it hasn’t been much fun in a while. That’s the standard I maintain. I don’t want to find myself in a position where I can be okay with 10th and be fine. Hey, I finished in the top 10, it was an amazing day. No, this is the 10th. That’s good, it’s a step forward, but it’s not where I want to be. It’s not the level at which I prepare. It’s not the level my team expects to perform at.
“The opportunity I have to be able to win at the highest level, the intensity I carry every day when I wake up, I go to the racing workshop. I eliminated all other distractions from my life, good, bad or indifferent. If that makes me a terribly rounded person, which it does in a lot of ways, all I care about is what I do within the walls of a race track.”
The victory is Cindric’s first top-10 finish since the second race of the year at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Although the number 2 team had plenty of qualifying speed with an average start of 11.9, it did not keep its car in contention throughout the season.
The win is a big win for Cindric, who is now in the Cup Series playoffs. Now, he can focus on building the consistency he lacked, as well as the confidence that he can get the job done.
“It’s no secret, this is our first win as a company this season,” Cindric said. “So we still need to be able to go out there and put numbers on the board and continue to grow our program, grow our team to where we’re ready for the opportunity. It’s not just an appearance. It’s a playoff race. This is what is possible.
“The season is long. Summer is long. A lot can happen, a lot can change. Very important in the next few months to prepare for this.”
Cindric was elevated to the Cup Series when Brad Keselowski left Team Penske to become owner/driver for RFK Racing. He began his full-time Cup career with a victory in the 2022 Daytona 500. The journey since then, however, has not been easy.
While teammates Blaney and Joey Logano have had success the past two seasons, Cindric is far behind. The No. 2 team’s struggles forced Penske to remove crew chief Jeremy Bullins after the 2023 regular season and replace him with Brian Wilson, who won the 2020 Xfinity Series championship with Cindric.
“Congratulations to him,” Cindric said of his crew chief. “I’m sure this means a lot to Brian. Brian’s first victory as a crew chief in the Cup Series. I gave him the checkered flag after the race. I’m so glad we got one of these together.”
The next Cup Series race will be at Sonoma, where Cindric finished fifth in 2022.
