Penske Pulls Out of Fast 12 Qualifying

Team Penske did not participate in the Fast 12 qualifying session on Sunday for the Indianapolis 500. Both Josef Newgarden's and Will Power's cars were pulled from pit road after Newgarden's car failed pre-qualifying inspection.

"Internally, we need to have a bit better process," said Team President Tim Cindric. "If you don't pass inspection at that point in time, you don't get the chance to go. There was no use really putting one of our cars or both of our cars out there and doing a qualifying run and put our drivers at risk if we knew that it essentially hadn’t passed inspection on the way through."

According to Cindric, a video alerted IndyCar officials to changes being made to Newgarden's car before qualifying. The changes were made to the attenuator, which caused the car to fail inspection.

Power's car had already passed inspection but was pulled back to the garages for further inspection by Team Penske. They found that it had the same issue as Newgarden's car and decided not to risk qualifying with it.

Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske's third driver, crashed during practice on Sunday morning and did not participate in the Fast 12. His car did not have the same attenuator issue.

Cindric confirmed that McLaughlin will be driving his backup car for the Indy 500, meaning all three Penske entries will start the race without having run an actual lap beforehand.