Team Penske – Ben's News Round-Up

A Smaller Team But The Same Goal

Team Penske head into the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season which gets underway in three weeks time with the Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg following a big change for the outfit over the off-season.

Penske has downsized this season, going from having four to three full-time entries following the departure of Simon Pagenaud who has moved to Meyer Shank Racing alongside Helio Castroneves.

The team has also had a change in the engineering department following the departure of Josef Newgarden’s race engineer, Gavin Ward who joined Arrow McLaren SP over the winter.

Team Penske will have Josef Newgarden in the No.2 Hitachi Chevrolet while Scott McLaughlin returns for his second season with the team in the No.3 PPG Chevrolet while Will Power continues in the No.12 Verizon 5G Chevrolet.

PPG and @Team_Penske are back at it again! We have renewed our sponsorship for 2022 and will be joined by two-time NTT @IndyCar SERIES champion @josefnewgarden behind the No. 2 PPG Chevy in 8 races! Read more here: https://t.co/LkWkmB20ER pic.twitter.com/kEsGkHm48t
— PPG Refinish / Refinition PPG (@PPGRefinish_NA) February 4, 2022

Team Penske has not won the championship in IndyCar since 2019 with Josef Newgarden while Simon Pagenaud won the Indianapolis 500 that year.

Penske Sign Up To The WEC

Penske Racing announced on Wednesday that they will compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship starting in 2022 fielding an ORECA-07 in the LMP2 class with Dane Cameron, Felipe Nasr and veteran driver Emmanuel Collard competing in the WEC season starting with the 1000 Miles of Sebring.

Speaking about the news, Team Penske President Tim Cindric commented saying:

“We look forward to learning as much as we can about the WEC process in 2022 as most of our competition has competed in this series for many years. “Much like the approach we took by running Road Atlanta in 2017 when we returned to sports car racing after an eight-year hiatus, we think the LMP2 class provides us a means of gaining valuable experience as we continue to build our program to compete full-time in the IMSA and WEC LMDh class.”

The WEC schedule will feature six international endurance rounds in 2022, beginning in the United States with the 1000 Miles of Sebring on Friday, March 18. The highlight of the series schedule includes the world’s most historic and prestigious sports car event – the 24 Hours of Le Mans – slated for June 11-12. It will mark the first time that Team Penske will compete at the legendary race since 1971 when Mark Donohue and David Hobbs raced for the team. The WEC schedule also includes visits to Spa-Francorchamps, Monza, Fuji and Bahrain in 2022.

Dane Cameron commented saying:

“Outside of Sebring and Spa, racing at some of these historic tracks all around the world will be a new experience for both myself and the team,” . “We want to learn, but we also want to be competitive and race for class wins. This will also be a great opportunity to build our notebooks to be even better prepared for the future. I’m excited to race at these historic tracks against some great competition in WEC, and it’s going to be incredible to compete for Team Penske at Le Mans.”

Former Formula One driver Felipe Nasr commented saying:

“Joining Team Penske in a great opportunity and I can’t wait to compete in WEC and return to Le Mans this year.. “I know we’ll learn a lot as a team as we develop our program and gain some great experience. I’m really excited to get to work as we begin to build momentum for the future.”

It will be the first time in more than 50 years that Team Penske have competed in the 24 Hours of LeMans,