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 once more whereas main with three laps to go at Atlanta. COTA offered no reduction as Cindric began the race behind the pack and frustrations rapidly boiled over to an incident that gave NASCAR officers pause to overview, leading to a behavioral penalty for the motive force of the No. 2 Group Penske Ford. Whereas he misplaced factors and a few money, he at least prevented a suspension.
Cindric let his feelings get the higher of him when Ty Dillon pushed him large within the early operating. He reacted virtually instantly, and deliberately turned Dillon to the correct on the frontstretch, inflicting him to impression the surface 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 important as a result of low price of pace, Cindric was spared struggling a one-week trip. Nevertheless, NASCAR has chosen to dock Cindric 50 driver factors and positive him $50,000. The factors penalty drops him from eleventh within the championship standings to thirty fifth.
NASCAR has just 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 surface 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 can be much more impactful as a consequence of new playoff waiver guidelines applied forward of the brand new season. Ought to a driver miss a race as a consequence of a suspension, they may nonetheless stay eligible for the playoffs through 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 staff after the right-front wheel got here off on the monitor. That is the usual punishment for shedding a wheel on monitor.
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Nick DeGroot
NASCAR Cup
Ty Dillon
Austin Cindric
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