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INDIANAPOLIS — Roger Penske said he talked after the Indy Grand Prix with Chip Ganassi, who had won four of the first five INDYCAR races this year thanks to driver Alex Palou. And he had a message for him.
“I told Ganassi to wait for us at Indy, because we’re going to focus on you guys there,” Penske said.
Ganassi didn’t need to know that about Penske. Above the Penske garage stalls at Indianapolis are the list of the Penske winners in the Indianapolis 500. Penske has won the race 20 times.
In the last 25 years, Penske has won 10 times, while Ganassi has won five and Andretti has also won five.
With the Andretti family no longer owning the team, Ganassi and Penske stand tall as the owners who have carried on a fierce battle over the last several decades. They also have battled in NASCAR and IMSA sports cars in the past.
“It’s always the people,” said back-to-back Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden of Team Penske. “I’ve lived and breathed it here [at Penske] for the last eight years. I get to work with the best. … You can’t replace excellent people, and we’ve got so much depth on our team and that’s what makes the difference.
“There’s other teams that have phenomenal crewmen and women. Ganassi certainly has been one of them for many, many years.”
Most of the time, Penske and Ganassi have a friendly, respectful rivalry. That seemed to potentially turn last week when Ganassi was questioning what Penske teams were doing on pit road prior to qualifying Sunday as Penske teams were in the middle of determining what they could do to try to fix the technical issues on their cars. They eventually weren’t allowed to qualify and more severe penalties followed.
Penske driver Scott McLaughlin said he doesn’t hold a grudge against the teams that called out their violations Sunday to make sure officials knew about them.
“That’s part of the game, I get it,” McLaughlin said. “That’s racing. That’s how it is.”
Palou was standing with Newgarden when Newgarden’s team was attempting to replace the part that had the illegal seam. Palou had a big smirk on his face.
“I know that you’re allowed to change front wing, rear wing, but nothing else,” Palou said. “I was just there, just trying to be funny and I asked if they were trying to cheat.
“I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t get an answer there. Then, suddenly, I found out what was going on. But I honestly didn’t know what was going on. I just tried to be funny that moment.”
Ganassi is satisfied with the actions by INDYCAR and Penske brass (Will Power and Josef Newgarden are starting at the rear and three Penske executives who double as team strategists have been released from their positions).
“The good news is people came out and did the right thing and they move on,” Ganassi said.
The changes won’t help the Penske team, which has won its Indy 500s with Rick Mears (four), Helio Castroneves (three), Newgarden (two), Simon Pagenaud, Mark Donohue, Bobby Unser, Danny Sullivan, Al Unser, Al Unser Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi, Gil de Ferran, Sam Hornish Jr., Juan Pablo Montoya and Power.
Ganassi has won his with Dario Franchitti (two), Montoya, Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson.
While many look at those two organizations when predicting the Indy 500, obviously they don’t take anything for granted. Penske has McLaughlin starting 10th and then Newgarden and Power starting 32nd and 33rd because of the penalties. Ganassi has Dixon starting fourth, Palou starting sixth and Kyffin Simpson starting 13th.
“Let’s hope it’s [Penske] and I at the end of the race because there are a lot of competitive cars here that could be in front of both of us,” Ganassi said.
One day in practice last week, seven of the top eight cars were either Ganassi or Penske drivers or drivers from their affiliate teams.
“Definitely the Penske cars look strong,” Dixon said earlier this month. “There’s no doubt about that. They definitely are running some big laps.”
Whether any Penske cars would have made the front row is hard to tell, after McLaughlin’s crash in practice Sunday morning and the technical violations of the Newgarden and Power cars that kept them from qualifying.
Still, neither Ganassi nor Penske have a car on the front row.
“In terms of pace, I think there’s over 10 cars that can win this race,” said Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward, who starts third.
Both Ganassi and Penske have affiliate drivers starting in the top 10. Felix Rosenqvist of Ganassi affiliate Meyer Shank Racing starts fifth; David Malukas of Penske affiliate A.J. Foyt Racing, starts seventh. In the final practice Friday for the Indy 500, six of the top-nine cars were Ganassi or Penske cars or their affiliates, led with Newgarden as the fastest and Dixon third.
“It’s just practice,” Newgarden said. “You want to be good in practice but practice doesn’t tell the whole story. … Our car has been pretty phenomenal all month.”
In the pit stop competition Saturday, three of the four finalists were either Ganassi or Penske crews with Newgarden’s team winning. That is an example of the depth Newgarden was talking about, and that depth was built over decades of competing at Indianapolis.
“We’ve both been here for a long time,” Ganassi said about the long-time battle with Penske. “And so I think our teams understand what it takes to be competitive here. And I don’t think it’s any secret that we spend a good bit of our R&D [research and development] budget on this one race.
“We want to do better at it. You win this race, it can change your career, change your life.”
The Ganassi drivers are well aware of that. Palou has won the series title in three of the last four years and appears on his way to a fourth title, having won four of the first five races this season.
Newgarden admitted earlier this year that Palou was in his head a little because of the success. If this race comes down to two drivers, it could very well be Palou and Newgarden — the Ganassi driver who has dominated the series and the Penske driver who has won the last two races here.
For Newgarden, he felt that the team inched ahead of Ganassi last year.
“When it’s for real, we’re going to see where everyone is really at,” Newgarden said.
Palou has never won on an oval and he said his career wouldn’t be complete unless he can earn an Indianapolis 500 win.
“I don’t think [it would be complete],” Palou said about a career with no Indy 500 win. “Maybe 90 percent, but I don’t think it would be 100 percent.”
Even though Palou has won four of the first five races, Ganassi doesn’t think he has the momentum coming into the race.
“I’d like to say they mean we certainly have momentum on our side, but the fact of that matter is, those races are nothing like the Indianapolis 500,” Ganassi said.
And the facts are Penske has won this race 20 times.
“He has the advantage of knowing he’s won this race more than I have,” Ganassi said. “He has that advantage, and there’s no replacement for experience at this.
“So it makes our job a little tougher. It’s always been my goal to measure ourselves against the best, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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