Penske sets IndyCar staff roster for WWTR

Team Penske has announced its temporary timing stand staffing choices for the third consecutive IndyCar Series race after the race strategists for its three Chevy-powered entries were fired days prior to the May 25 Indianapolis 500.

At Indy and the Detroit Grand Prix that followed on June 1, Team Penske relied on personnel assistance from the Porsche Penske Motorsport IMSA GTP program, but with PPM competing this week in France at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Penske’s IndyCar effort will consolidate the race strategist and race engineering roles on the Nos. 2 and 12 entries.

For Sunday’s 260-lap race at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois, two-time Indy 500-winning engineer Luke Mason will also call strategy for Josef Newgarden’s No. 2 Chevy and David Faustino will embrace the same engineering and strategy responsibilities on Will Power’s No. 12 Chevy.

The only carryover from Indy and Detroit is found with Scott McLaughlin’s No. 3 Chevy where race engineer Ben Bretzman will handle all technical aspects of the car on Saturday before sliding over to the strategist role for the 8pm ET race on Sunday night while Malcolm Finch backfills Bretzman’s engineering duties for the race on the 1.25-mile oval.

Separate from the event-specific timing stand rosters, veteran Penske crew chief Matt Jonsson, who has overseen Power’s car this year, will hand the position over the Blaine Hardy for the WWTR event. With decades of championships and Indy 500 wins to his credit, Sweden’s Jonsson has been a living legend on pit lane while training many of Penske’s past and present mechanics and their way upward through the organization.

Hardy, who served in the Marines from 2006-’14, has worked under Jonsson on the No. 12 Chevy this season and will lead the car for the first time as Jonsson moves to a team-wide support role which could foreshadow his future use by Penske in managerial capacity.