This was meant to be one of the biggest weekend’s and stories of the year. Robert Shwartzman takes a 5,000/1 shot to become just the third rookie ever to take pole position for the greatest spectacle in racing. The first rookie to do it in 42 years, and the first new team to do in 43 years. In a world of Motorsport’s dominance being well known in 2025, this was awesome…
Until, less than 24 hours later, all hell breaks loose as Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden and Will Power are sent to the back of the grid, their crew chiefs are banned for the rest of the event and $200,000 worth of fines. Why? Penske’s been running with a modified rear attenuator unit, a part of the safety cell that had been smoothed out, for reasons Penske claim were purely “asthetic”. Didn’t help that people noticed the same smoothed out unit was seen on Josef Newgarden’s 2024 Indy 500 winning car.
Roger Penske then decided to clean out his entire IndyCar senior management – including Tim Cindric, 26-year veteran of the team, and Ron Ruzewski, 20 year veteran of the team.
Dre Harrison is joined by Cam Buckley, RJ O’Connell and a special guest – Chris DeHarde of Frontstretch.com to make sense of the biggest IndyCar story of the year, the Shwartzman pole shock, and a full run down of the 2025 Indy 500 field, except for poor Jacob Abel, who was bumped from the field for Dale Coyne Racing.
