“Deep Dive” interview with Team Penske Managing Director, IndyCar, Ron Ruzewski

Roger Penske:

This is Roger Penske, and you're listening to Pit Pass Indy, sponsored by Penske Truck Rental.

Bruce Martin:

IndyCar fans, it's time to start your engines. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy, a production of Evergreen Podcasts. I'm your host Bruce Martin, a journalist who regularly covers the NTT IndyCar series. Our goal at Pit Pass Indy is to give racing fans an insider's view of the exciting world of the NTT IndyCar Series in a fast-paced podcast featuring interviews with the biggest names in the sport.

I bring nearly 40 years of experience covering IndyCar and NASCAR, working for such media brands as nbcsports.com, si.com, ESPN Sports Ticker, Sports Illustrated, Auto Week and Speed Sport. So, let's drop the green flag on this episode of Pit Pass Indy.

Welcome to this special bonus edition of Pit Pass Indy as we begin our fifth season of giving IndyCar fans an inside look at the most exciting form of racing on the planet, the NTT IndyCar Series. IndyCar teams are hard at work preparing for testing for the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season, including Team Penske at its massive shop in Mooresville, North Carolina.

On this special bonus edition, we have an in-depth deep dive interview with Team Penske, Managing Director IndyCar Ron Ruzewski. The man who oversees the IndyCar effort at Team Penske, reflects on the 2024 season, including Josef Newgarden's dramatic win over Pato O'Ward in the 108th Indianapolis 500 to become just the sixth driver in Indy 500 history to win the race in back-to-back years.

Ruzewski also looks ahead to the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season as Team Penske will once again feature drivers Josef Newgarden, a two-time Indy 500 winner and two-time IndyCar Series champion, Will Power, the 2018 Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time IndyCar Series champion and star driver Scott McLaughlin, who started on the poll in the 108th Indianapolis 500 in 2024.

But Ruzewski also shares his experience of pain and heartbreak when he was unable to attend all month of May activities at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2024.

Ruzewski, Team Penske president, Tim Cindric and engineers Luke Mason and Robbie Atkinson were suspended by team owner Roger Penske because of a technical violation regarding the push to pass system in the season opening race at St. Petersburg.

Newgarden was the apparent race winner but was disqualified along with third place finisher Scott McLaughlin. Power was penalized but not disqualified because the software was on his car, but he did not utilize it outside of the rules.

Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren finished second on the track that day and weeks later was awarded the victory by IndyCar after the disqualifications were announced. Late in 2024, I met up with Ruzewski at the Team Penske shop in Mooresville, North Carolina for this exclusive Pit Pass Indy interview.

Around Team Penske, they called the off season, the non-racing season because there's never really an off season in IndyCar. A lot of these guys take care of a lot of different things throughout the year to prepare for the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season but today we're joined by IndyCar managing director Ron Ruzewski at Team Penske. Ron is in charge of the entire IndyCar operation over at Team Penske.

There's been a lot of stuff that's gone on since the last race of the year at Nashville. If you could just catch yourself a little bit on what's going on over here at the shop.

Ron Ruzewski:

Yeah, thanks Bruce. Like you said, I don't really know that there is an off season, and it seems like even though it's quite a few months between races there's so much things that the time evaporates away and really not sure where the time goes.

But since Nashville, if I look back, not too long after Nashville, we had series wide, IndyCar had a test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway so there was some work that was done right away in preparation for that.

In the case of us, we were trying to any things that we were doing or getting ready for rolling out speedway cars early, trying to shake those down, be ahead of the game, and all that work was done. Plus, there was some tire testing that was done at that time for Firestone.

So, soon after that there's meetings that occur with manufacturers, internal meetings, recapping our season where our strengths were, where our weaknesses are, you don't want to wait. If you're waiting until September to make your work list, you're probably already behind.

So, we were working on that throughout the end of July, August and then really just confirming and allocating manpower as to who's going to do what and then finalizing some meetings with Chevrolet, Ilmor, recapping engine performance, talking about strengths and weaknesses there things that you can't do until the season's actually over.

So, that first couple months flies by with some tests, some meetings, setting a direction and then it really seemed like at the end of October we were finally starting to, okay, head down, work, let's try and make some performance for 2025.

Bruce Martin:

The Indianapolis test was interesting because it had the hybrid, and it seems strange that Indianapolis is the one track where the hybrid wasn't used yet. So, how much will that really change the weight balance, and will the extra boost really be noticeable in the race?

Ron Ruzewski:

It was interesting, the weight wasn't as noticeable there just from a pure speed standpoint, because once you're at getting close to terminal velocities, it's just like your car on the highway. It takes a lot of energy to get your vehicle moving, but once your vehicle's moving, it doesn't take as much to keep that mass rolling.

So, the weight, there was some effective tire degradation and a little bit more loads on the right front tire specifically, but it was managed pretty well. The weight distribution of the car is probably, again, more significant on the road and street courses. It's evident there, but you're talking tens of a percent shifts. Something that can be dealt with, with moving their own balance one way or another.

It was in the way that we tested it, which that's to be seen how IndyCar implements the rules and what the energy limits are, it makes a difference, it makes a difference. The difficulty is balancing out that difference in performance with the energy it takes to regenerate itself.

So, in qualifying, it's going to be a tradeoff, in how to figure it out in the race, it could be definitely useful because with the draft there's a lot more opportunities to regen. So, we'll see. It'll be interesting to see how IndyCar implements rules, the energy limits but it's certainly not a negative.

Bruce Martin:

When the whole hybrid assist program began or actually when it was implemented at the middle of the season at Mid-Ohio, Jay Frye, IndyCar President, I asked him, I said, “Can this thing be increased? How much power this thing is able to generate?”

And he goes, “Yes.” He goes, “We want to determine the reliability of it the rest of this season, but there is the ability to give it a little more juice.” How much capacity do you think is available that you would like to see IndyCar maybe allow?

Ron Ruzewski:

I'm not privy to the exact levels that they can go to and the reliability, even if they had any reliability issues or deterioration of the units over time that's really information between, I guess IImor and Honda and IndyCar.

But I do know that as I was told, there's quite a bit more capacity within the units and certainly we'd like to see them start to exploit it and start to use some of that capacity, because then it can be a little bit more of a differentiator and help much like push to pass and things like that. So, it'd be nice to see them increase that capacity.

Bruce Martin:

We saw a couple of teams in IndyCar have some unexpected problems with just losing power. We saw it happen to Scott Dixon, the first race at Mid-Ohio, car just quit on the parade lap, we saw it also happen later in the year at Milwaukee.

Did Team Penske experience any issues like that, that a lot of us may not have found out about, whether it be in practice or qualifications or in the race were for whatever reason, with the hybrid in the car, the car just lost power, everything had to be charged back up.

Ron Ruzewski:

We didn't experience anything like what Scott did or some of the other problems that were had. As I understand it, most of those were procedural problems not necessarily unit wide problems, but again, it's what I've heard.

We experienced a couple issues that were potential reliability issues, but they have some protocols and some information that's provided to, or that we were able to look at to spot some of these things and they did some preventative changing out of the units. Some of them were performance detrimental, but we were able to catch them before a race.

We may have went through a qualifying session with that problem, which is when we caught it but it's all part of the learning curve as well. We've become used to now as the norm in IndyCar to have no problems.

Those of us have been doing it for a long time remember when it was a big deal to finish a race because you were always introducing new technologies, new parts, new pieces. I would say it in its introduction and with the limited number of problems that were had, it was pretty successful.

Bruce Martin:

You being in racing as long as you have, you think back to the Indianapolis 500 used to be famous for all of a sudden you'd see this big rooster tail of oil smoke from somebody blowing an engine. You might see that five, six times in the race, that doesn't happen anymore.

It probably hasn't happened in 20 years because of the reliability, the engines has gotten to the point where frankly, they don't really break. Would you like to see more of that, push it to the limit type of technology?

Ron Ruzewski:

It's a balance. Certainly, like to see the opportunity for innovation, try and pushing the envelope, trying to get the advantage. But I also understand the economics of it and the entertainment factor of having as many cars as we do finish a race and there's a balance.

Oftentimes, I do wish there were more open areas so that you could differentiate yourself as a team a bit more opposed to as spec as some of the series are.

But there's still ways, it's just different. You just have to look at it differently, whether it's and your increments are smaller. Everybody's trying to find a gain, it's just the increments are smaller, they're a lot harder to find and they probably still come at the same cost.

Bruce Martin:

IndyCar has admitted that a new car will be coming, when, we're not sure, but if you had a chance to weigh in any of your ideas of what the new car should be like?

Ron Ruzewski:

Not a lot. IndyCar told us in the team managers’ meeting, I believe in October, that starting here in November they were going to consult a group consisting of people from each of the teams to either review some of the work and/or have input.

I've been involved in a few meetings relevant to the arrow configuration and some of the other aspects of the car, some of the components of the car as well as some of the other people from other teams we were all collectively in. But it's been pretty small amounts at this point in time and we're told it's meant to be quite a bit more here in the immediate up and coming future.

Bruce Martin:

Would you like to see the car look a lot different, look a little different? IndyCar kind of has its own unique look but in many ways it's pretty much looked like that for the last 40, 50 years.

Ron Ruzewski:

Yeah, I mean, personally I'd like to see it take maybe a step forward and maybe be a little bit more current looking. There's some really cool designs out there. You see some of the stuff that we've seen in Hypercar and in Formula E and in F1 and others.

And sometimes it doesn't take a big change, but just something to continue to make it look fresh, new, current, technically, it should have some appeal to it, it needs to have some of that wow factor, so yeah as long as it's also functional.

Bruce Martin:

You brought up a good point earlier about entertainment value and when you design a new car and we get that wow factor, it might really change the dynamic of the competitiveness throughout the field of the race.

We used to see that back in the 60s, 70s and 80s and 90s, when people would bring new cars every year and you'd have great car designs, you'd have other car designs that lagged back of the pack. How big a risk is that to try to convince the IndyCar fans that in order to move forward, it might change the way the race looks?

Ron Ruzewski:

Well, hopefully if everybody does their job and we're cognizant of what the fans are after, we should be able to achieve both goals. We should be able to have a new car, a safe car, a fast car, a car that maybe hits some of what the drivers want, lightweight, agile and still have exceptionally good racing. So, I don't think it's an either/or situation, you can have both, it may take a couple races.

If we look at NASCAR's evolution with this current car, okay, it wasn't perfect when it came out and some people were quick to dismiss it, but they worked through it and they worked through it collectively with the teams and they got there.

And we're seeing some really great races in NASCAR just as we are in LMP two class with the sports car series where, okay, it wasn't perfect on its debut, but it's pretty darn good right now and I would expect the same with the IndyCar.

Bruce Martin:

The current IndyCar in a lot of ways there's been different iterations of it of course, the arrow screen and some other changes have been made, but for the most part, it's been the same, whether you want to call it the DW12 or whatever they call it now, since 2012. You as an engineer working with your engineers, everything in the world is probably finite but if you reach the finite level of what you guys know about what can be done with the car?

Ron Ruzewski:

Well, certainly the gains are smaller and in certain areas we welcome change because change is opportunity. So, anytime for instance, they change the regulations and they change the format for Nashville opposed to what you would call a traditional oval or a speedway package. So, that was change, so that created opportunity. Some people are going to get it right, some people are going to get it wrong.

There's not a lot of change coming from what I understand in 2025, but we haven't seen the rules either, so we haven't quite grasped what IndyCar might throw our way. Whether it's in tires or arrow or MGU power for the hybrid system, it'll continue to be some of that work that there's opportunity.

Bruce Martin:

So, for the rest of 2024, what is the goal at the shop? What do you do for the rest of 2024? And then what do you do at the beginning of 2025 in terms of getting ready for the season?

Ron Ruzewski:

Well, as I alluded to earlier, probably since we kind of got through all our meetings and some of our postseason stuff, it finally gave everybody the time to get head down and start working on projects.

So, probably now, between now and into the beginning of January, we'll be head down working on those things, whether that's work for the DIL, driver in the loop simulator, whether that's correlating simulations, whether that's preparing for next year's race events by looking at what parts and pieces we need and of those parts and pieces, okay what has to be done to them.

There's some new softwares that whether it's timing and scoring softwares or different data analytics stuff that we're trying to make sure we're up to speed with, try and right now to get all that work done in the beginning of January, you want to be winding down with that.

And then the way the testing is right now we probably won't be testing until sometime in maybe early to mid-February. So, I would say in January and February we'll also be full-time trying to keep the drivers out of here because they'll be chomping at the bit and wanting to do something. So, we'll spend time in the simulators and try and do whatever we can to keep them fresh.

Bruce Martin:

We will be right back to Pit Pass Indy after this short break.

Will Power:

This is Will Power of Team Penske, and you are listening to Pit Pass Indy, presented by Penske Truck Rental.

Bruce Martin:

Welcome back to Pit Pass Indy, here's the rest of my interview with Team Penske, Managing Director IndyCar, Ron Ruzewski for Pit Pass Indy.

Speaking of the drivers, Josef Newgarden won back-to-back Indianapolis 500s, 2023 and 2024. That hadn't been none since Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002, and two of your three drivers ended up in the top five in the IndyCar points.

But yet, I wouldn't get the sense that the end of the year that this was a Penske like season in many ways, because your expectations are always very high, you want to win the Indy 500, you want to win the championship. How would you look at the 2024 season and how would you gauge it?

Ron Ruzewski:

It's interesting that you say it that way because it's not so different from what I see. Certainly, Indianapolis was very successful getting all three cars on the front row, getting the pole, that was a huge goal of ours.

To get a car on the front row and get the pole would've been good but we've been working really hard at trying to improve our process, and we knew that once we got all the pieces together, we could have that kind of success. And to actually get there and then execute was huge and credit to everybody. So, that was major.

And then to cap it off with the win, if we'd have left there without the victory, you'd have felt pretty empty so being able to do that was a major check for us. As far as the rest of the year, it was hot and cold.

I mean, we won eight races and each of the drivers won, that's good and bad. That means as a team we're having a lot of success, but we're also taking points away from each other.

A couple things, incidents this year, whether it's our guys running into each other or us not executing or just some things out of our control, all happened. If you take half of those problems away and just finish as you were, the championship looks different.

We're probably one, two in the championship. We had too many errors to walk away and go. It was a success because the capability and the potential was there to have a spectacular year. As it was, we had a good year, and by any other team standard, it was probably a great year, but with what we knew the potential was or could see on a week-to-week basis to not execute like we could have, it left a lot on the table.

Bruce Martin:

Did you ever figure out what the issue was of Will Power's lap belts in the last race of the year at Nashville?

Ron Ruzewski:

We did. We worked through that with the manufacturer and such, and it was not a manufacturing flaw. We did find what the problem was, and hopefully that's remedied going forward and won't have that issue.

Bruce Martin:

You brought up a real good point, and I'd be remiss unless I brought it up, but in a lot of ways it could have been a terrible year after what happened with the season opening disqualifications for Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin. But to see the team finish the year getting beyond that adversity with two in the top five, there's a lot of teams that may not have had the wherewithal to have rebounded like that.

Ron Ruzewski:

I mean, from where I sit, it was a major distraction, there's no question. But for the people, the feet on the ground here, it didn't change because we knew what the truth was, we knew how the issue came about, we knew there was nothing done and with ill intent or to do something out of the norm.

So, it was business as usual. It's like you can't ever control what people are going to say or think, so you just have to move on and go forward. So, we put it behind us as best as we could, tried to eliminate distraction as best as we could, and then just move on.

Bruce Martin:

It was business as usual, but for the sake of accountability, you weren't able to spend the month of May at Indianapolis neither was Tim Cindric, Luke Mason, a few other people weren't allowed, they had to sit out a suspension in May and here your team ends up sweeping the front row.

So, you're in Mooresville, you don't really get a chance to experience that thrill and then Josef wins the race in dramatic fashion, and you weren't able to be a personal part of that, although you were a part of that because you guide the team. How do you describe the emotions of that month and of race day?

Ron Ruzewski:

It was a difficult month. It's something I'll never get back. As tough as it is to win that event and have that kind of success you want to be there for it. What was meaningful is when you get notes and messages from your peers, peers that you respect that recognize that it didn't just happen that day, they know what it takes.

So, when you get those people acknowledging your work, it means a lot. I never thought I'd be sitting in a pub with Tim Cindric watching qualifying 600 miles away and never thought that would happen. And hope it never happens again but yeah, it's what it is and it's what we had to do. So, we just move on from it.

Bruce Martin:

Where were you race day and what were your emotions like seeing that whole thing play out?

Ron Ruzewski:

I was at my house. The only advantage there was I didn't have to deal with all the rain stuff that everybody else had to deal with and I went about my business. I think I might've cut the grass and stuff, did a few other things during the day while you all were fighting the rains.

But then come race day, when the race started, I had to be in a different room for my wife because I was camped out with two TVs and watching timing and scoring and listening to the internet feeds and stuff. So, I was distant as I was asked to be, but yeah, I also didn't want to be distracted and just wanted to really take it in like I would at the racetrack.

Bruce Martin:

But yet I'm sure that the emotional barrier could probably come down because you weren't there in front of 340,000 people and media cameras and everything because usually, you're pretty business-like on the timing stand when you're watching the Indy 500 in this unusual situation. I'm sure there was probably a time or two where you could let the emotions out, scream, holler, cheer, maybe throw your fist in the air when something went well.

Ron Ruzewski:

Yeah, which is why my wife and I were in separate parts of the house, so yeah, and that was probably the biggest difference. And certainly, like you say, you're also then you're second guessing a little bit and you're just hoping and that everyone makes the right calls and does what you would've done.

But at the end of the day, we have some depth, we have a lot of great people here, there's no one person that makes this team successful, there's no I in teams. So, we built it where we can be sustainable and that's as much to take pride from, is that having known that you're a part of building that organization to where you can dip into the bench and still have that kind of success on race day, it's pretty big deal.

Bruce Martin:

How did you balance the emotions of exuberance, happiness, seeing Josef win that race, especially the way he did, but damn it, it had to hurt not being there.

Ron Ruzewski:

Certainly, I mean, one of these days I'll photoshop myself in the picture maybe that'll help me a little bit. But no, it did and I'd be lying if I said it didn't, but it's what it is. And again, just part of I believe in this team, I believe in Roger Penske. It was his decision of what we did. It wasn't a serious decision, it was his decision. So, I have to accept that and move forward and just go try and win another one.

Bruce Martin:

But the fact that the team, it seemed like they had a single-minded purpose, that they were going to make a point during the month of May, and they did it by only becoming the second team to ever sweep the front row all three positions and also winning the race. So, just how proud were you to see that team basically just have that laser focus, that this is how we're going to prove our point?

Ron Ruzewski:

Yeah, and I think we took that attitude not just there, but other places. I mean, Barber was an example. I mean, all these other places just where we showed up and again, despite just any adversity, we're here to do a job, we're here to win the poll, we're here to win the race and that's what we're after doing. So, we're again, just trying to stay head down.

Bruce Martin:

So, you're in the paddock, you work with these teams every race, a lot of these guys you've known for decades, something would maybe go against them, then you would start hearing other team owners try to make it look like there's an unfairness with the way IndyCar is conducted. You know, better than that, we know better than that. But those comments probably had to irritate you a bit, especially since you guys are the ones that paid the most severe penalty.

Ron Ruzewski:

Yeah. I mean, it's just noise. So really, I think like any profession, if you're going to rise to the occasion, you got to be able to filter out the noise. Whether you're quarterback for a football team, driver for a race car or just a key person in the team, if you start to get caught up in that social media, all that other stuff, it's just that noise it'll bring you down. But the people that can filter out the music and the noise are the ones that succeed.

Bruce Martin:

So, you're focused with Team Penske, but you pretty well have to admit like the rest of us on September 27th when we found out that Michael Andretti was no longer part of Andretti Global, you had to be shocked by that news. How surprised were you that because he was getting ready to go to Formula One?

Ron Ruzewski:

It definitely caught me off guard. I'm not sure of all the circumstances around it to have an educated voice and/or even an opinion of what I think on it but I think Michael's been … have a lot of respect for him. He is a staple in our sport, he's a leader in our sport, so to see to what level he'll step away is, I guess to be seen yet and I just hope he maintains in contact because I think he's important for our sport.

Bruce Martin:

And as we wrap up here with IndyCar, Managing Director, Ron Ruzewski at Team Penske, if you could give us a quick wrap up of all three drivers, how you view their seasons in 2023, Will Power shows that he's still got a lot of fight left in him, even though he’s the oldest driver in the series, Scott McLaughlin, he seems to be getting better and better and of course, I mean, what can he say about Josef Newgarden, he’s got 30 victories and he's an Indy 500 winner, two times, there's not very many people that can say that.

Ron Ruzewski:

Yeah, I think just going in order, the two car with Josef, again, showed incredible speed, a couple race wins, had some ups and downs this year, fought through a lot of adversity, I expect next year to be a lot more smooth, a lot more contained, I expect him to build on his speed, his relationship with Luke Mason and the rest of the group around him.

I expect the same for him other than to be a true championship contender opposed to I think he finished eighth or ninth, so I think we'll see him come up. I expect him to also compete again for the win at the Indy 500.

Moving on to the three car with Scott, he's consistently showed us speed, people look at Palou and what he's done, but Scott's really new to this whole deal and his success specifically on ovals and in qualifying has been spectacular.

He rebounded from basically sitting out a couple races to top three in the championship. So, I expect that to continue on and Will Power, like you said, he showed his speed three race wins, I expect another consistent season from him starting up front and winning some races.

Bruce Martin:

There's a lot of people at Team Penske that can take in and share the success that this team has had for close to 60 years now. But you're in charge of a lot of very talented and very key people who are all successful and winners.

Ron Ruzewski, Managing Director of IndyCar at Team Penske, congratulations in 2024 and good luck in the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season and thank you for joining us on Pit Pass Indy.

Ron Ruzewski:

Yep, thanks Bruce.

[Music Playing]

Bruce Martin:

And that puts a checkered flag on this edition of Pit Pass Indy. We want to thank our guests, Team Penske, Managing Director, IndyCar Ron Ruzewski for joining us on this special bonus edition of Pit Pass Indy.

Along with loyal listeners like you, our guests help make Pit Pass Indy your path to victory lane in IndyCar. For more IndyCar coverage, follow me at X, previously known as Twitter at BruceMartin_500.

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thanks to our production team, executive producers are Brigid Coyne and Gerardo Orlando. Recordings and edits were done by me, Bruce Martin and final mixing was done by Dave Douglas. Learn more at evergreenpodcasts.com. Until next time, be sure to keep it out of the wall.