Although they’re not alone in the pursuit of the
“Unfair Advantage!”
Laying dormant over thoust winter slumber, thru
the new year and first four races. I’ve finally been able to track down the
results of the significant engineering reshuffle at Team Penske this season.
With the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle being Tim Cindric’s re-hiring.
Following last May’s firing of Cindric, Ron
Ruzewski and Kyle Moyer, Porsche Penske Motorsport major domo Jonathan Diuguid
assumed Cindric’s role and is in charge of the IndyCar and IMSA GTP programs.
With Travis Law serving as Competition Director.
David Faustino, Will Power’s engineer and 16
year Penske veteran has been appointed as Technical Director, overseeing
R&D and technical aspects of the IndyCar program.
Ben Bretzman, who’s served as Simon Pagenaud’s
and Scott McLaughlin’s race engineer. Was promoted to Engineering Manager of
Competition, overseeing all three Team Penske IndyCar’s engineering efforts.
Josef Schlick’ Newgarden retains His
Indianapolis 500 winning race engineer Luke Mason and team boss Jonathan
Diuguid as race strategist.
ScottyMac’, ergo Scott McLaughlin has new race
engineer Raul Brados. And on the timing stand, Tim Cindric as strategist.
David Malukas continues with James Schnadel as
race engineer, the pair working together at Foyt last year. While Travis Law
steps up to being a first time race strategist.
Matt Johnsson, a former chief mechanic becomes
the new Assembly Manager. While Robbie Atikson becomes the new Team Manager.
Another IndyCar team making significant changes
over winter was Ed Carpenter Racing. (ECR) With Matt Barnes being elevated to
Vice President of Competition.
Thus relative newcomer Quentin Montigaud, who
becomes Alexander Rossi’s new strategist. As the former Formula E employee will
also engineer Rossi’s car, after serving as performance engineer last year on
the No. 20 ECR entry. While Christian Rasmussen’s No. 21 entry retains Peter
Craik.
Robert Gue, former Arrow Mclaren and Prema
Racing employee joins ECR as Special Projects Manager. Derek Davidson, former
Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) chief mechanic and team manager becomes ECR’s new
team manager. And Chase Campbell has been hired as the team’s first ever
Stregth and Conditioning coach; also overseeing pit stop practice for both
entries, and serve as pit stop coach.
On an unrelated note. Ryan Briscoe, former
sporting director of Prema Racing, has taken up a similar role for RLL, working
with its three drivers, primarily newcomer Mick Schumacher. While veteran
engineer Mike Pawlowski who recently worked with Kyle Larson, becomes
Schumacher’s race engineer.
Then after finishing this story. I spotted news
that Pawlowski will shift to an R&D engineering role at RLL, since the
chemistry between Him and Mick wasn’t panning out.
Veteran engineer Ed Jones will fill-in at Barber, and remain with Schumacher thru Long Beach. Then shifts over to Takuma Sato’s No. 75 entry for theIMS Open test and Indianapolis 500. With the team using this time to determine who Schumacher’s next race engineer for the remainder of the season will be.
