Cindric penalized, but avoids suspension for inten...

It is no stretch to say that Austin Cindric has had a tough begin to the 2025 season. He was wrecked out of the lead whereas main on the ultimate lap of the Daytona 500, and again while leading with three laps to go at Atlanta. COTA supplied no reduction as Cindric began the race at the back of the pack and frustrations rapidly boiled over to an incident that gave NASCAR officers pause to assessment, leading to a behavioral penalty for the driving force of the No. 2 Workforce Penske Ford. Whereas he misplaced factors and a few money, he at least averted a suspension.

Cindric let his feelings get the higher of him when Ty Dillon pushed him vast within the early operating.  He reacted virtually instantly, and deliberately turned Dillon to the correct on the frontstretch, inflicting him to affect the skin wall as different vehicles took evasive motion. Traditionally, these sort of intentional incidents the place a driver is right-hooked into the wall result in suspensions, however Cindric was in a position to keep away from that destiny.

Because the incident did not lead to a warning, nor was the injury vital as a result of low price of velocity, Cindric was spared struggling a one-week trip. Nevertheless, NASCAR has chosen to dock Cindric 50 driver factors and high quality him $50,000. The factors penalty drops him from eleventh within the championship standings to thirty sixth. 

NASCAR has lately taken a really dim view of right-hooking drivers into the wall as a type of retaliation. In 2022, Bubba Wallace was suspended for hooking Kyle Larson into the skin wall at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In 2023, Chase Elliott was suspended for doing the identical to Denny Hamlin at Charlotte Motor Speedway. 

However in 2025, a suspension could be much more impactful because of new playoff waiver rules implemented ahead of the new season. Ought to a driver miss a race because of a suspension, they may nonetheless stay eligible for the playoffs by way of a waiver however will lose all of their playoff bonus factors and forfeit any future playoff factors they accumulate main as much as the playoffs.

In Wednesday’s penalty report, NASCAR additionally suspended two crew members (jackman Brandon Johnson and tire changer Blaine Anderson) from Larson’s workforce after the right-front wheel got here off on the observe. That is the usual punishment for shedding a wheel on observe.