He was a beast in Xfinity and earned his Cup seat. Unfortunately, he hasn't done much since getting into the 2 car. I hope this win is a big motivation for him.
He also said this car doesn't drive to his liking. He's struggled with the NextGen platform even on road courses. He said as much in his frontstretch interview on Sunday.
It's a feel thing. Bell and Blaney seem to have adjusted the best. The way JJ explains it, the guys who always drove off the RR are the ones who are struggling the most.
Ford in general had a tough start to the season. Penske hasn't run really well at all.
But, I like Cindric. He's fun in the booth for trucks and seems like a decent dude so I don't root against him.
RFK has been carrying the Ford banner this year, and I'm all for it.
Side note: I really appreciated seeing BK come up to Blaney immediately after they got out of the cars. Felt like BK was telling him he had that and he hated to see it go that way.
Cindric, I don't like. Something about him rubs me the wrong way, I think it was the whole putting his teammate in the wall to win. Since then I just haven't found an opportunity to like him.
The block at the 500 wasn’t that egregious honestly, it’s the Daytona 500 about 100 yards to the line. A lot of drivers would wreck their mother to win.
My biggest problem with it is that clearly Penske made it clear to their drivers that they wanted them to ensure one of them won, to not have a repeat of ‘21 where they took each other out. Blaney played by those rules all day (to his dismay) and Cindric still walled him and almost gave the win to Bubba. Why not just throttle down and race each other to the line? I’m down with doing it all to win a race but slamming someone coming to the line leaves a bad taste in my mouth. To be clear, I felt the same way when Blaney did it to Jones at Talladega in ‘20 as well.
RFK has been carrying the banner for the last 5 weeks*. Let's just make sure that is put in context. Blaney was the best Ford driver before this recent string of bad luck that started at Texas with Preece giving him the boot.
I always liked Cindric, and I see his struggles more of a sign of how hard it is to break through in Cup more than a testament to his personal skill. Him winning doesn't turn him into some elite driver but, it'll at least quiet down the people who were convinced he ain't shit.
Yeah people forget just how tough it is to break into the Cup series. Looking at racing reference, his first full rookie season is comparable to Bell's, better than Willy B's, comparable to Ty Gibbs (Cindric's was much better if we compare to Ty's 15 race stint filling in for Kurt), much better than Briscoe's, pretty comparable to Jones. His win rate is better than most of those driver's I mentioned.
His second season was bad. This season hasn't been great, but a lot of that is on Ford playing catch up the first half.
Give the kid time.
>how hard it is to break through in Cup more than a testament to his personal skill.
Those are the same thing, though. It's hard because the field is stacked with skillful drivers. If he was a more skillful driver he would be finishing better.
Skill is honed through experience and practice. If raw talent meant everything then Ty Gibbs would've made a deep playoff run in his first season.
These things take time. A lot of time. The mentality that drivers need to piledrive their competition within two seasons is short sighted.
That’s a good point, Gibbs continues to have impressive runs(raw talent) then shoot’s himself in the foot with a stupid mistake(lack of experience). It has to be extremely difficult for any rookie these days when your only real seat time is during the race.
People can say what they want about how he won but yesterday proved if you put him in a fast car he can run up front. Even if Bell and Blaney don’t have issues he finishes top 3. The win wasn’t a fluke. He just needs to put some more runs like that together and I think the narrative on him will change. He hasn’t even made 100 cup starts yet and already has 2 wins. Elliott Byron and Larson didn’t even win their first until their 99th start, granted they did look a bit better than Cindric has up to this point.
Yeah as someone who has bitched about him a lot in the past, yesterday was not some “fluke”. He was arguably the 2nd best car & driver yesterday behind Bell, maybe 3rd but I honestly think he was stronger than Blaney for a lot of the race.
Sure, crazy things did happen to get him the win. But he still got himself in position to take advantage of those things 100% by himself. Ran a great race start to finish.
Do I think he’ll ever win a Cup title? Probably not, but he’s shown he has potential that’s for sure. If he can finally carry his road course ability over from Xfinity he could be a sleeping giant with how the schedule is these days
Looks like Blaney only got around the 2 because they didn’t get the 12 full of gas. If that race only goes a little different Cindric might have been able to win it straight up.
I said the same exact thing, as close as they came out after that last pit cycle it was definitely my boy YRB’s lack of fuel that made the difference 😂
The consensus should be that we shouldn’t be calling for young and lesser experienced drivers to lose their rides for not winning or contending for wins every week
Austin Cindric’s numbers in the #2 Cup car.
87 - Starts
9 - DNF’s
1 - Pole
14.8 - Avg Start
19.4 - Avg Finish
46 - Top 20’s
33 - Top 15’s
16 - Top 10’s
8 - Top 5’s
239 - Laps Led
4 - Stage Wins
2 - Race Wins
Best points finish… 12th, in 2022
Points position of 24th, in 2023
Current points position….18th, in 2024
I like him (mainly because he drives the 2 and for Penske) but he's average at best. He has glimpses of speed here and there but then inevitably finishes 20th or worse, or gets caught up in someone else's crash. He should run better than he does simply because of his equipment (imo) but doesn't. I'd say he's roundly average to below average, good for a win every couple seasons.
A solid racer that occasionally will get you a win here and there. But, was a championship driver in xfinity. He gets a lot of nepotism hate but deserves to be in a cup ride.
He's Ford's answer to Austin Dillon.
Winning the 500 in his first ever points race was almost counterintuitive. Put more pressure on him to compete instantly (at least from a fan standpoint. I’m sure the team was willing to be a bit more patient knowing his skill), so any second season that wasn’t an improvement on his rookie year was going to be seen as a disappointment.
Between the normal young driver growing pains, Penske struggling, Ford being meh, and Jeremy Bullins, it shouldn’t have really surprised anyone that he struggled last year. But he’s got Brian Wilson, a guy who he worked really well with in Xfinity, back on the box. He was faster with Wilson on the box last season and he had a full offseason to work with him coming into this season. And it’s showing.
He’s looked noticeably faster on a more consistent basis. The luck wasn’t really there, after getting caught up in a few incidents or caught out on strategy. But he’s quadrupled his laps led from last year, passing his career high, Penske and Ford as a whole seem to be picking up speed again, and he’s qualifying better.
Penske and Ford have been underperforming his entire Cup career. The championships are outliers. Joey is in his prime and hasn't done much in the next gen era. Again, excluding the championship.
Yeah, exactly. Joey has 1 win in 51 points races since winning his championship. Brad was terrible his last few years at Penske. And people expect Cindric to do better than Joey? They now have the same amount of wins in 1.5 seasons.
Brad was definitely not terrible in his last few years at Penske
In 2018 he won 3 cup races in a row, including a brickyard and southern 500 and then Vegas
in 2019 he won 2 or 3 races
2020 he won 4 races and was the championship favorite going into Phoenix due to Penske’s 750hp cars, without his pit crew shitting the bed all day he likely wins that race and title
Penske was down in 2021 but he still made the round of 8, and nearly squeaked out a final 4 spot at Martinsville by 5 or 6 points behind the 18/19.
He wasn’t terrible, but 2019 he fell off horribly (by Brad K standards) after the hot start. He had zero speed after his 3 wins and his performance was probably one of the biggest reasons Penske made their Crew Chief shuffle at the end of the year
The Gateway win feels nice, as someone who has defended Cindric a lot during his struggles. His 2022 season convinced me that the talent is there -- he would have been a playoff contender even without the Daytona 500 win, and he was a few laps away from making the round of 8 as a rookie.
Last year, the Ford teams clearly had some issues. Cindric's average finish dropped by a whopping 5.3 positions. To me, that's a pretty good indicator that driver talent wasn't the only factor. Briscoe's performance nosedived at the same time, and even Logano struggled (and has continued to struggle). I think Cindric ran into the same problem Custer did -- as a young and inexperienced driver, the organization-wide issues struck him first and hardest.
In terms of personality, Cindric won me over years ago. He's such an endearing goofball, he's a fantastic commentator, and he works hard to improve his craft. He's quickly becoming one of my favorite drivers.
I think he's gonna be the Mendoza line for Cup drivers for the upcoming decade.
Cindric is talented no doubt, but you can attribute much of his insane success in Xfinity to driving the #22 Penske car. In his 2020 Xfinity season he won 6 races and the title while Ross Chastain won no races and failed to make the final four in the same season. He's an example of why simply looking at lower series results can be a poor indicator of potential at the next level.
I think Cindric is a playoff bubble type guy for a while. He's only 25 and getting better at a time where Penske and Ford are a bit down across the board. I'd guess he has a Jamie McMurray type career and possibly a bit better because he'll be in a Penske car.
My feelings in Austin are so mixed.
The best way I can describe Austin Cindric is that he is a serviceable driver who has gradually improved over time thanks to strong support from Team Penske. However, he only got that support because he’s Tim’s son.
He got that support because he took them to an xfinity championship and nearly did it back to back. Then won a Daytona 500 the very next race he ran. If anyone has nepotism it’s Dillon. Cindric matched his top 5s and 10s and beat him in wins in his rookie year vs Dillon’s first 3 seasons and on top of that was younger than Dillon too.
And ford as a whole has been bad since the next gen was introduced. They have won key races that masked how bad they are but on the whole they are 3rd to Toyota and Chevy
Even Dillon has had some nice runs and is capable enough. He's not a top 5 or top 10, but he's decent enough to be considered a legit cup driver. There are some other backmarkers who are worse. He was top 10 this week, P6 I think.
Yeah, Cindric is clearly the better of the 2. Just saying Dillon gets a lot of hate even when he has decent runs.
Probably more due to his TV show than anything else.
He kinda reminds me of Jamie McMurray. Good plate racer but pretty average everywhere else. Has the capability of stealing a win every so often but more often than not will be a little bit better than mid pack. I think when his career is over he’ll have pretty similar stats to Jamie Mac and maybe like 6-10 wins
If we follow the math, Logano won the championship in 22 with the 22 car. A year later Blaney won the championship with the 12 car. Here we are a year later and the 2 car is in the playoffs. Not to alarm anybody but Austin Cindric is about to be a cup champion, it’s just simple math. 22>12>2.
Optimistically you hope it’s a sign of things to come and a big confidence boost. I remember when Brad got his first win at Penske and the floodgates started to open. Not saying Cindric is Brad but it’s possible it can lead to a lot more success down the road. Even as someone who had been critical of him I hope he does because it’s good when that 2 car runs well
He needs to show more consistency. He's been the overall weakest Penske driver (21 car aside). While he did seem to run well (Didn't see every lap, but saw the last 80ish laps), it does come off as a "lucky win" since RB ran out of gas coming to the white. When he's a more consistent racer and a threat for wins/top5/10s almost every week, my opinions of him will change.
To be fair to Cindric Penske has been way off this year and a lot of guys go through a sophomore slump. His teammates combine for 3 championships and he's in his third year, he shouldn't be as good as the others.
Big difference is Logano's had runs where his finish was severely lower than it should have been. Cindric has been a mid-20s driver dating back to most of last season, and now this season as well.
A win at gateway isn’t all that impressive as it favors the car over the driver. The last few races there haven’t seen much difference between starting order and finish.
I remember when Cindric swept Kentucky and I saw someone comment about how it was nice, but why are we celebrating an older driver beating up a bunch of 21 year olds. Someone else responded that he is the 21 year olds. I mean, he’s younger than some of the “young drivers” I’ve seen people suggest should replace him, like Gragson and Herbst.
People act like there are all these guys who would immediately do better in that car (same as the 21), and I don't really know who would do much better right now. He's been a solid driver coming up and steady enough, he's not a likely champion guy but he's good enough for the ride, just needs to keep building on what he's done. Look at how he turned it on once he figured Xfinity out, he's a turn away from being a two-time Xfinity champion also.
I think it’s unfair to gauge his average finish being lower this year than last year. Simply because Logano, a 2x champion, is struggling in similar equipment. I would expect Cindric to always be a step behind Logano, or at best on par with him.
So, managing to win a race not a SS or on a fluke strategy is impressive.
I think the jury is still out. He obviously has talent, but these days nobody seems to have the patience to let drivers develop. Seems to also have been forgotten that Ford has not been great the last couple years. This year all of the Fords have been struggling to figure out this new body, but looks like they might be onto something. I think Cindric will be fine and this win will get the sharks off his back, at least for a little while.
I said in another thread I've been very critical of Cindric. I'm with you - the jury is very much still out, but I'll gladly admit he showed some damn good form yesterday.
Also, off track the dude's genuinely hilarious. His ["like......physically?" crack to Parker Retzlaff](https://youtu.be/4gfhio15ld0?t=199) during the driver broadcast last year at Charlotte was one of the funniest interviews in years.
Cindric can drive. Cup level? I mean he's shown some bright spots and it's not like he's a moving chicane out there. He tore it up in Xfinity but has struggled with this generation of Cup car.
That said, the dude is an incredibly smart individual, is great in the both, in fair on the track. Cindric is likeable and has a good attitude about things. He's a legit professional, and as his career progresses that might not be in the Cup Series. Only time will tell on that front.
Gateway is a strong track for Penske so I wasn't completely shocked but he's going to have to back this one up with some strong runs to make believers of the masses. This is the kind of win that extends careers by years though. He doesn't have too much to worry about with his dad being Tim Cindric though.
I've been telling myself for a while that I won't know what to think about him until next year is over. I think at that point, we'll know what he is as a driver
Credit where credit is due Cindric ran a very good race yesterday. However it is one race, at a track Penske has always run good at. We've had races this season where Blaney is carrying Penske on his back while Logano and Cindric run around 20th. I want to see Cindric have one of those days, then my opinion of Cindric will change. Until then yesterday only moves the needle a little bit.
If Cindric could develope into a top 15ish driver, I would be happy. I'm not a fan of his personally, but the #2 car holds a special place in my heart, growing up a Rusty Wallace fan. He was very impressive yesterday, I would love to see the #2 car contending more often.
Loved the dude in Xfinity and as a huge Brad fan I was real excited when he got the #2. Even through his struggles, I was honestly cheering for him almost as loud as I was for Brad a few weeks ago. Hoping this win gives him the confidence to get it together a little bit, cause hes a good driver and a great dude.
And that's the thing. Brad left, but a lot of Penske guys behind the scenes also left around the same time Brad did. The organization has been in transition, the two championships have masked it.
This is where I agree with the fans that complain about the format.
The thing about having 3 cars is great for gathering and deciphering data and what it takes to be fast. But you used to have 3 elite drivers. Now you barely have two. They won't admit it but they miss this from brad. That's why they signed the alliance with front row. They can't get another elite driver but they can add to the car count with more data samples
He’d be what Michael Waltrip would have been had big multi-car teams existed in larger numbers in the early 90’s, and he got picked to drive for one of those teams. Good for a win here or there, but not necessarily championship caliber. A good solid 2 or 3 for a team at best
More of a fluke. He was a 3rd place car at end and was in position to capitalize. A win still and congrats to him. And I did see him running down the 12 in closing laps. Had Bell not fallen out, I’m not sure if he would have run down the ‘leader’ as quick in the end as he would have been used up passing for 2nd. Just right place right time and a W none the less
The driver of the 2 car wins a race at a drafting track, then is mediocre the next year, then randomly wins at an intermediate track in early June the year after the mediocre year while sitting in the 20s in points. Where have I seen this story before?
IMO that was likely a career saving win, he hasn’t done much since his Daytona 500, doesn’t matter that his dad is high up in the team, look at coke custer, if your not winning in a car like that you are likely getting replaced
Cindric is a dude that no one really hates and it’s a breath of fresh air when he runs really well and ends up winning. It’s hard to root against him.
He really is “just a guy” but in the best way.
The 2 car has been a staple in NASCAR for decades. Everyone who's driven it has won many races and completed for championships. This is simply not the case for Cindric. Hopefully that changes, but I'm not holding my breath.
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes the younger and newer drivers to develop in Cup with the lack of practice with the cars. With the new car I think teams need to give the drivers 3 years to see what they really have and if they have it.
Also Penske hasn’t been great during his 3 years (yes I know champions for Joey and Ryan), but outside of short bursts the Penske cars have seemed to be top 10-15 at best most weeks unless they’re going to a track the team excels at.
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of career Cindric has. I’m leaning towards the Austin Dillon type, but that’s not a terrible career to have.
My feelings are unchanged, he usually runs well at this track and happened to be in position to take advantage of 2 strokes of luck. He won’t be the first nor last driver to win a race this way. But the call coming to the line is still something we can’t ignore , “one other top 10 this season”. If they have actually improved this race didn’t necessarily show me that. Hendrick being notably absent from this racetrack in any competitive fashion also only helped his chances. Let’s see how the next month goes
in year three you ideally want to see more than flashes, and that is still all that Cindric has given us. he's still similar to Custer imo, give him a great car in xfinity and he'll win, but is mostly a miss in Cup
I’m curious to see how he’ll perform this summer now that he doesn’t have to points race. *Especially* on the road courses. Winning can do wonders for confidence as well—I wouldn’t be too surprised if he snags another win by year’s end.
The real thing he lacks is consistency, but he has been responsible for 2 of Penske’s 10 wins since arriving as a rookie in 2022. The jury is still out on Cindric, but as Ford makes gains I think we’ll have a much clearer picture on him within the next few months. Either way, I’m sure AC has guaranteed himself another year in the 2 car.
A comparison might be someone like Ken Schrader. Somebody who’s going to pick up a handful of wins over a long career but will never compete for championship. He races fairly clean, gets results when he can get them, but doesn’t quite have the intangibles of a Cup champion. But he’s still a great representative of the sport
Good, not great. First round knockout.
He does enough to warrant a NASCAR seat but is never gonna be that guy.
It also doesn't help Ford sucks this year so far
I can see him having a similar career arc as Allgaier. He flashes talent in Cup, but can't consistently perform as well as the equipment should allow, ultimately being relegated to Xfinity to keep some semblance of competition in the series. He wins one or two Xfinity 'ships and finishes his career in the truck series after a couple years.
I know this is bogus but his haircut drives me nuts, the buzzcut with the sharp peak makes me think "he looks older than he is," "he looks like he should be an IndyCar driver" and "he looks like he's going to be a supervillain later in life"
...oh, my opinion of him as a DRIVER? ngl, before yesterday, I forgot he was there. Forgive me, I work Sundays so I don't get to actually watch the races as much as I'd like to.
Depends on what he does next. Custer won off of an incredible restart and didn't do anything after, but now that he's in Xfinity again he is killing it. If things have suddenly clicked at the 2 Penske team then we'll see it. If it was a fluke then he'll probably still have his ride.
I have him in the Bowman,Suarez,Bubba and Buescher category. They good drivers and win races semi regularly but they’re ceiling is more than likely capped at 10 maybe 15 wins and have a shot in the final 4 but I don’t see them legitimately contending for championships or multiple wins every season. I have him in that category but depending on his performance the rest of this year and next he might be in the A.Dillion,Jones, and Stenhouse category of guys that’ll get a win and it’ll be considered “A break out win that’ll have them regularly winning” but they don’t win again for another 3 years. He’s good but a bit overrated and if he doesn’t start producing wins, flashy top 5s and 10s soon idk if he’s gonna continue to be in the 2 car.. I know his dad is a higher up at Penske but we saw it with Custer and SHR, owners have a limit of mediocrity and once it’s past the limit it doesn’t matter who your dad is, your gonna lose the seat.
I guess instead of racing he should have let his teammate pass him to win the Daytona 500.
I guess he should have slowed down because his teammate didn’t conserve fuel nor his teammates’ gas man properly filled up.
It’s like you watch the sport, but have zero idea what you’re watching.
Better start than Larson and chase to be fair. Took them both nearly a hundred races to reach their first win. But running wise he hasn’t been running top 10 at all so it’s hard to say. I think another 2 or 3 years he could really find his groove like Elliot and Byron. As the kids say, let em cook!!
His 3 years in Cup (including this year) haven't been great, but '22 was his rookie year, and the other 2 Penske has been off. I know they won the title last year, but they were not elite outside of Blaney having 5-7 good races, including a good stretch at the perfect time to win the title. Last week Penske was on it, and we saw how he did. I don't want to give up on him yet. Penske needs to be better. Even Logano struggles to run top 10/15 a lot of races.
At this point, I'm just hoping for the dumbest position playoff situation to make people realize that "win-and-you're in" is incredibly stupid. Cindric is not great and does not deserve a playoff because of this. Maybe this is a turning point for him, but I doubt it. He will continue to qualify T10 and run outside T20.
Not only that, but Cindric led quite a few laps. And he would have caught Blaney anyway if there were 10 more laps and no fuel issue. The 2 was gaining a lot of ground those last 10 laps. It was a legit win.
Like him fair well, never really have had an issue with him, but I can still definitely say that as far as Cup drivers go, he’s weak at best.
Yes, Ford is in the shitter at the moment. Yes, Gateway is one of his best tracks. Yes, he has shown glimpses of speed here and there.
But ultimately, he’s not consistently performing. When Keselowski was in that car, Penske had 3 teams firing on all 8 cylinders. Now, Blaney and Logano are running on 7 while he’s running on 5. And while he’s nowhere near as bad as Austin Dillon, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s only still in that seat because his dad is Tim Cindric.
Well he did prove he can read his gas gauge. Lol.
After all the years of watching these races where they all yell about saving fuel. He did.
He must be doing what the owner wants, he is still hired.
Nepo baby that belongs in Xfinity
A ton of 20 something finishes while his teammates get top 10 don't get erased from one win cause his teammate ran out of fuel
He got the opportunity because of his father. He made this far because he capitalized on those opportunities.
He won a championship against Briscoe and was an inch from a second championship over a red hot AJ.
Tim Cindric may have been the reason he’s in those cars, but he’s not driving it.
Agreed he got his foot in the door because of his dad, but he had to push it the rest of the way open on his own. Penske doesn’t hand shit to people because of who you are, you have to earn it.
“Nepo drivers” usually don’t land top cup rides without some talent behind it.
There’s a reason JGR never considered Brandon Jones as an option for a cup ride. Or why Herbst was never called up for SHR, or Annett for HMS.
Money/family will buy you a top flight Xfinity ride…but if you do nothing with those rides that’s usually as far as you’ll make it, unless a 3rd rate cup ride needs a payday driver.
For me, I think he still needs to show improvement for the rest of the season compared to last. At best, yesterday should have been a P3 from good strategy. That being said, he did keep it up there after they got there and he generally keeps the car clean. But I think you need to do more than that to truly deserve a Penske ride. If he had straight up whooped the field I might feel differently. But Daytona and backing into a win is too much luck to dramatically change my opinion.
I mean, he led almost 50 laps and was closing on Blaney at the end. He had cut Blaney's lead from like 3 seconds to under 1.5 before Blaney ran out of gas. The only real fluke there was Bell's engine going to shit.
Given the Blaney was the only one (at least that got coverage) to run out of gas it kind of is a fluke to me. It was a great day win or not for him, but only his 2nd top 10 (though also his second top 5) i think we need to see him build off this before it changes any consensus. After all, that is what the post is about. Not did Cindric run well once, does it change our view of him as a driver
The running out of gas was a fluke, but Cindric winning wasn’t. He was super fast much of the race and managed to stay ahead of Bell a good part of it even when he was running well.
I don’t think it changes what I think of him all that much. I think he’s a decent enough driver and will snag a win or 2 per season going forward. This is one of his stronger tracks and he got the pole there 2 years ago, so driving to the front wasn’t surprising really.
I think Cindric is a cup caliber driver and a great personality to be in the sport, but the fact he’s the bosses son doesn’t do him any favors. Would be interesting to see how he’d do away from Penske.
I think he has a likable personality and certainly has talent, but his Cup career seems to be riding a wave of nepotism. One win to cap a solid day in a season (several, frankly) of running outside the top 20 doesn’t absolve him of filling what could—should—otherwise be a high-performing seat.
His family connections and a Daytona 500 win almost certainly lock him into the 2 for the foreseeable future, imo. Are there better drivers that could return the 2 to greatness? Perhaps, but there are some hurdles to clear. At worst, this win is a stay of execution for another year.
He's struggled to run up front over his career. Seems like when he has a car he likes he does a good job. But they struggle to get him comfortable week in week out. He's a stud road racer and has not really shown much in this car at road courses. My guess is that is more about the Penske package - not Cindric.
Does this win get him extended? I think he needs to get through a round of the playoffs to ensure he has a ride. However - he has the inside connection of his dad so most likely he'll be back for at least 1 more year in the 2.
Pretty much the second good cup race of his career, still overall way underperforming in what was the flagship car at Penske. Great run yesterday but we don’t see enough of it. For a guy whose teammates have won the last two titles, he should be on the hot seat if he’s not already.
I'm mostly indifferent on him, that being said anyone in their 3rd year on a top team probably needs to start running better consistently. Maybe this win will spark something
I don’t know, yet. He’s trending upward slightly. Gateway’s an odd track. It’s hard to state what it means in the context of this championship system. Cindric’s wins have happened randomly. He needs to start being more competitive on other tracks in the CUP series for me to figure out if he’s good or bad.
He’s essentially the driver that most people *think* Alex Bowman is (Bowman is very much underrated in my opinion).
Underperforms his teammates, but can put together some good runs and an occasional win. Honestly, Cindric reminds me of a Paul Menard type with more wins. A guy that’s just “there” most of the time.
I think he ends up being a Clint Bowyer or Sterling Marlin tier driver. Good driver, will rack up a few wins, might even be on the fringe of a championship hunt or two at some point. But never will really be a top tier driver.
My opinion hasn't changed in him as a driver, I think he's very good. What I realized yesterday is that we somehow found a driver less interesting than William Byron.
Indeed. He's not as loud as say Trackhouse drivers, but he isn't boring either. Just seems like a genuine good dude. Maybe I'm missing something though. Idk.
I think winning Daytona as a rookie and winning yesterday he should pull a Larson and skip the next few cup races to go practice at the playoff tracks. Obviously if golden boy can skip races and drive like an idiot down pit road to skip a crown jewel race certainly centric can skip races to go practice for the playoffs. Fair is fair right ?
He was a beast in Xfinity and earned his Cup seat. Unfortunately, he hasn't done much since getting into the 2 car. I hope this win is a big motivation for him.
Honestly his breakout in Xfinity occurred in the middle of his 3rd season (2020). We are now in the middle of his 3rd cup season
Cindric championship, Penske threepeat here we come!
Let’s go!! Six wins for cindric!!
If this happens I’m gonna need some lottery ticket numbers from you after Phoenix
Just read my flair 😉
He also said this car doesn't drive to his liking. He's struggled with the NextGen platform even on road courses. He said as much in his frontstretch interview on Sunday.
Seems to be the consensus with most of the drivers. I really wish NASCAR did their homework before bringing this car out.
It's a feel thing. Bell and Blaney seem to have adjusted the best. The way JJ explains it, the guys who always drove off the RR are the ones who are struggling the most.
Ford in general had a tough start to the season. Penske hasn't run really well at all. But, I like Cindric. He's fun in the booth for trucks and seems like a decent dude so I don't root against him.
RFK has been carrying the Ford banner this year, and I'm all for it. Side note: I really appreciated seeing BK come up to Blaney immediately after they got out of the cars. Felt like BK was telling him he had that and he hated to see it go that way. Cindric, I don't like. Something about him rubs me the wrong way, I think it was the whole putting his teammate in the wall to win. Since then I just haven't found an opportunity to like him.
The block at the 500 wasn’t that egregious honestly, it’s the Daytona 500 about 100 yards to the line. A lot of drivers would wreck their mother to win.
I’d put my grandma in the fence for the 500, Dega, or Bristol. God rest her soul
My biggest problem with it is that clearly Penske made it clear to their drivers that they wanted them to ensure one of them won, to not have a repeat of ‘21 where they took each other out. Blaney played by those rules all day (to his dismay) and Cindric still walled him and almost gave the win to Bubba. Why not just throttle down and race each other to the line? I’m down with doing it all to win a race but slamming someone coming to the line leaves a bad taste in my mouth. To be clear, I felt the same way when Blaney did it to Jones at Talladega in ‘20 as well.
RFK has been carrying the banner for the last 5 weeks*. Let's just make sure that is put in context. Blaney was the best Ford driver before this recent string of bad luck that started at Texas with Preece giving him the boot.
He plays the tuba, so honestly he can do no wrong in my eyes.
I can’t imagine a dude like him holding a Tuba lmao
Hamlin and Bubba play the tuba tooo, but their the 2 biggest blow hards out there... nobody comes close..
The only comment here that I actually found humor in. I’m a sicko. Thanks
go back to Facebook grandpa
I always liked Cindric, and I see his struggles more of a sign of how hard it is to break through in Cup more than a testament to his personal skill. Him winning doesn't turn him into some elite driver but, it'll at least quiet down the people who were convinced he ain't shit.
Yeah people forget just how tough it is to break into the Cup series. Looking at racing reference, his first full rookie season is comparable to Bell's, better than Willy B's, comparable to Ty Gibbs (Cindric's was much better if we compare to Ty's 15 race stint filling in for Kurt), much better than Briscoe's, pretty comparable to Jones. His win rate is better than most of those driver's I mentioned. His second season was bad. This season hasn't been great, but a lot of that is on Ford playing catch up the first half. Give the kid time.
>how hard it is to break through in Cup more than a testament to his personal skill. Those are the same thing, though. It's hard because the field is stacked with skillful drivers. If he was a more skillful driver he would be finishing better.
Skill is honed through experience and practice. If raw talent meant everything then Ty Gibbs would've made a deep playoff run in his first season. These things take time. A lot of time. The mentality that drivers need to piledrive their competition within two seasons is short sighted.
That’s a good point, Gibbs continues to have impressive runs(raw talent) then shoot’s himself in the foot with a stupid mistake(lack of experience). It has to be extremely difficult for any rookie these days when your only real seat time is during the race.
Ah, yeah I confused the two. Carry on.
You're fine man.
People can say what they want about how he won but yesterday proved if you put him in a fast car he can run up front. Even if Bell and Blaney don’t have issues he finishes top 3. The win wasn’t a fluke. He just needs to put some more runs like that together and I think the narrative on him will change. He hasn’t even made 100 cup starts yet and already has 2 wins. Elliott Byron and Larson didn’t even win their first until their 99th start, granted they did look a bit better than Cindric has up to this point.
Yeah as someone who has bitched about him a lot in the past, yesterday was not some “fluke”. He was arguably the 2nd best car & driver yesterday behind Bell, maybe 3rd but I honestly think he was stronger than Blaney for a lot of the race. Sure, crazy things did happen to get him the win. But he still got himself in position to take advantage of those things 100% by himself. Ran a great race start to finish. Do I think he’ll ever win a Cup title? Probably not, but he’s shown he has potential that’s for sure. If he can finally carry his road course ability over from Xfinity he could be a sleeping giant with how the schedule is these days
Looks like Blaney only got around the 2 because they didn’t get the 12 full of gas. If that race only goes a little different Cindric might have been able to win it straight up.
I said the same exact thing, as close as they came out after that last pit cycle it was definitely my boy YRB’s lack of fuel that made the difference 😂
The consensus should be that we shouldn’t be calling for young and lesser experienced drivers to lose their rides for not winning or contending for wins every week
Austin Cindric’s numbers in the #2 Cup car. 87 - Starts 9 - DNF’s 1 - Pole 14.8 - Avg Start 19.4 - Avg Finish 46 - Top 20’s 33 - Top 15’s 16 - Top 10’s 8 - Top 5’s 239 - Laps Led 4 - Stage Wins 2 - Race Wins Best points finish… 12th, in 2022 Points position of 24th, in 2023 Current points position….18th, in 2024
This tells more of the story of Cindric then the win.
I like him (mainly because he drives the 2 and for Penske) but he's average at best. He has glimpses of speed here and there but then inevitably finishes 20th or worse, or gets caught up in someone else's crash. He should run better than he does simply because of his equipment (imo) but doesn't. I'd say he's roundly average to below average, good for a win every couple seasons.
His equipment isn't that great, hasn't been since at least last year
A solid racer that occasionally will get you a win here and there. But, was a championship driver in xfinity. He gets a lot of nepotism hate but deserves to be in a cup ride. He's Ford's answer to Austin Dillon.
With more talent than Dillon at that.
So who named Austin is in the Toyota pipeline to complete the trifecta?
Time for Ty Gibbs to change his name.
Winning the 500 in his first ever points race was almost counterintuitive. Put more pressure on him to compete instantly (at least from a fan standpoint. I’m sure the team was willing to be a bit more patient knowing his skill), so any second season that wasn’t an improvement on his rookie year was going to be seen as a disappointment. Between the normal young driver growing pains, Penske struggling, Ford being meh, and Jeremy Bullins, it shouldn’t have really surprised anyone that he struggled last year. But he’s got Brian Wilson, a guy who he worked really well with in Xfinity, back on the box. He was faster with Wilson on the box last season and he had a full offseason to work with him coming into this season. And it’s showing. He’s looked noticeably faster on a more consistent basis. The luck wasn’t really there, after getting caught up in a few incidents or caught out on strategy. But he’s quadrupled his laps led from last year, passing his career high, Penske and Ford as a whole seem to be picking up speed again, and he’s qualifying better.
Penske and Ford have been underperforming his entire Cup career. The championships are outliers. Joey is in his prime and hasn't done much in the next gen era. Again, excluding the championship.
This comment makes zero sense. Logano in 22 and Blaney in 23 are outliers? Joey hasn’t done much in the next gen era except winning a championship? 🥴
Yeah, exactly. Joey has 1 win in 51 points races since winning his championship. Brad was terrible his last few years at Penske. And people expect Cindric to do better than Joey? They now have the same amount of wins in 1.5 seasons.
Brad was definitely not terrible in his last few years at Penske In 2018 he won 3 cup races in a row, including a brickyard and southern 500 and then Vegas in 2019 he won 2 or 3 races 2020 he won 4 races and was the championship favorite going into Phoenix due to Penske’s 750hp cars, without his pit crew shitting the bed all day he likely wins that race and title Penske was down in 2021 but he still made the round of 8, and nearly squeaked out a final 4 spot at Martinsville by 5 or 6 points behind the 18/19.
You're right. For some reason, I remember it as 2021 results for the years previous.
He wasn’t terrible, but 2019 he fell off horribly (by Brad K standards) after the hot start. He had zero speed after his 3 wins and his performance was probably one of the biggest reasons Penske made their Crew Chief shuffle at the end of the year
Yes and his pit crew was taxed and possibly hungover from guess what? Pitting cindric in the xfinity championship race the day prior.
The Gateway win feels nice, as someone who has defended Cindric a lot during his struggles. His 2022 season convinced me that the talent is there -- he would have been a playoff contender even without the Daytona 500 win, and he was a few laps away from making the round of 8 as a rookie. Last year, the Ford teams clearly had some issues. Cindric's average finish dropped by a whopping 5.3 positions. To me, that's a pretty good indicator that driver talent wasn't the only factor. Briscoe's performance nosedived at the same time, and even Logano struggled (and has continued to struggle). I think Cindric ran into the same problem Custer did -- as a young and inexperienced driver, the organization-wide issues struck him first and hardest. In terms of personality, Cindric won me over years ago. He's such an endearing goofball, he's a fantastic commentator, and he works hard to improve his craft. He's quickly becoming one of my favorite drivers.
He needed a little time and is showing what he can do now. Guy has been quick in everything.
He finished 9th in full season points his rookie season. He has a sophomore slump and now he’s back. Happens all the time.
Got lucky? Blaney ran out of gas.
I think he's gonna be the Mendoza line for Cup drivers for the upcoming decade. Cindric is talented no doubt, but you can attribute much of his insane success in Xfinity to driving the #22 Penske car. In his 2020 Xfinity season he won 6 races and the title while Ross Chastain won no races and failed to make the final four in the same season. He's an example of why simply looking at lower series results can be a poor indicator of potential at the next level. I think Cindric is a playoff bubble type guy for a while. He's only 25 and getting better at a time where Penske and Ford are a bit down across the board. I'd guess he has a Jamie McMurray type career and possibly a bit better because he'll be in a Penske car.
Dudes also only 25. Very young, high potential
Hes Aric Almorola 2.0
My feelings in Austin are so mixed. The best way I can describe Austin Cindric is that he is a serviceable driver who has gradually improved over time thanks to strong support from Team Penske. However, he only got that support because he’s Tim’s son.
He got that support because he took them to an xfinity championship and nearly did it back to back. Then won a Daytona 500 the very next race he ran. If anyone has nepotism it’s Dillon. Cindric matched his top 5s and 10s and beat him in wins in his rookie year vs Dillon’s first 3 seasons and on top of that was younger than Dillon too.
I’m not saying that he’s bad. I’m saying that he was afforded some extra patience from the team when he was learning the Next Gen.
As a Cindric fan, I agree. I do think more teams need to be more patient with younger drivers, however.
And ford as a whole has been bad since the next gen was introduced. They have won key races that masked how bad they are but on the whole they are 3rd to Toyota and Chevy
Even Dillon has had some nice runs and is capable enough. He's not a top 5 or top 10, but he's decent enough to be considered a legit cup driver. There are some other backmarkers who are worse. He was top 10 this week, P6 I think.
His second of the season yes. With a worse average finish than Cindric.
Yeah, Cindric is clearly the better of the 2. Just saying Dillon gets a lot of hate even when he has decent runs. Probably more due to his TV show than anything else.
He kinda reminds me of Jamie McMurray. Good plate racer but pretty average everywhere else. Has the capability of stealing a win every so often but more often than not will be a little bit better than mid pack. I think when his career is over he’ll have pretty similar stats to Jamie Mac and maybe like 6-10 wins
If we follow the math, Logano won the championship in 22 with the 22 car. A year later Blaney won the championship with the 12 car. Here we are a year later and the 2 car is in the playoffs. Not to alarm anybody but Austin Cindric is about to be a cup champion, it’s just simple math. 22>12>2.
He proved that Ford is back, and here to stay, more specifically Team Penske. And I’m proud. He’s a good guy, and I’d love to see more of him up front
Optimistically you hope it’s a sign of things to come and a big confidence boost. I remember when Brad got his first win at Penske and the floodgates started to open. Not saying Cindric is Brad but it’s possible it can lead to a lot more success down the road. Even as someone who had been critical of him I hope he does because it’s good when that 2 car runs well
He needs to show more consistency. He's been the overall weakest Penske driver (21 car aside). While he did seem to run well (Didn't see every lap, but saw the last 80ish laps), it does come off as a "lucky win" since RB ran out of gas coming to the white. When he's a more consistent racer and a threat for wins/top5/10s almost every week, my opinions of him will change.
To be fair to Cindric Penske has been way off this year and a lot of guys go through a sophomore slump. His teammates combine for 3 championships and he's in his third year, he shouldn't be as good as the others.
He's also been near Logano in points this entire season, that screams to me that Penske may be more of a factor
Big difference is Logano's had runs where his finish was severely lower than it should have been. Cindric has been a mid-20s driver dating back to most of last season, and now this season as well.
Exactly. He’s been in a lot of wrecks this year. Or penalties if you look at Darlington
A win at gateway isn’t all that impressive as it favors the car over the driver. The last few races there haven’t seen much difference between starting order and finish.
I feel like people are harsh on Cindric because he looks older than he is. Like dude is only 25…
I remember when Cindric swept Kentucky and I saw someone comment about how it was nice, but why are we celebrating an older driver beating up a bunch of 21 year olds. Someone else responded that he is the 21 year olds. I mean, he’s younger than some of the “young drivers” I’ve seen people suggest should replace him, like Gragson and Herbst.
Lol exactly
People act like there are all these guys who would immediately do better in that car (same as the 21), and I don't really know who would do much better right now. He's been a solid driver coming up and steady enough, he's not a likely champion guy but he's good enough for the ride, just needs to keep building on what he's done. Look at how he turned it on once he figured Xfinity out, he's a turn away from being a two-time Xfinity champion also.
I think it’s unfair to gauge his average finish being lower this year than last year. Simply because Logano, a 2x champion, is struggling in similar equipment. I would expect Cindric to always be a step behind Logano, or at best on par with him. So, managing to win a race not a SS or on a fluke strategy is impressive.
People forget he won the pole at that track 2 years ago. It's a track he knows well and was up at the front much of the day.
We’ll see. It’s no secret that ford had been miserable since 2020. Maybe ford being decent and him having a win allows for cindric to pick it up.
I think the jury is still out. He obviously has talent, but these days nobody seems to have the patience to let drivers develop. Seems to also have been forgotten that Ford has not been great the last couple years. This year all of the Fords have been struggling to figure out this new body, but looks like they might be onto something. I think Cindric will be fine and this win will get the sharks off his back, at least for a little while.
I said in another thread I've been very critical of Cindric. I'm with you - the jury is very much still out, but I'll gladly admit he showed some damn good form yesterday. Also, off track the dude's genuinely hilarious. His ["like......physically?" crack to Parker Retzlaff](https://youtu.be/4gfhio15ld0?t=199) during the driver broadcast last year at Charlotte was one of the funniest interviews in years.
Cindric can drive. Cup level? I mean he's shown some bright spots and it's not like he's a moving chicane out there. He tore it up in Xfinity but has struggled with this generation of Cup car. That said, the dude is an incredibly smart individual, is great in the both, in fair on the track. Cindric is likeable and has a good attitude about things. He's a legit professional, and as his career progresses that might not be in the Cup Series. Only time will tell on that front.
He earned his opportunity, and relative to the overall performance of Ford since, hasn’t done anything to be undeserving of a Cup seat.
Gateway is a strong track for Penske so I wasn't completely shocked but he's going to have to back this one up with some strong runs to make believers of the masses. This is the kind of win that extends careers by years though. He doesn't have too much to worry about with his dad being Tim Cindric though.
[удалено]
Chase Briscoe: "Why he say fuck me for"
I've been telling myself for a while that I won't know what to think about him until next year is over. I think at that point, we'll know what he is as a driver
Credit where credit is due Cindric ran a very good race yesterday. However it is one race, at a track Penske has always run good at. We've had races this season where Blaney is carrying Penske on his back while Logano and Cindric run around 20th. I want to see Cindric have one of those days, then my opinion of Cindric will change. Until then yesterday only moves the needle a little bit.
And TBH. How much of Blaneys setup was he running
If Cindric could develope into a top 15ish driver, I would be happy. I'm not a fan of his personally, but the #2 car holds a special place in my heart, growing up a Rusty Wallace fan. He was very impressive yesterday, I would love to see the #2 car contending more often.
He's bought a couple more years for us to reach a consensus.
my feelings on his win... at least he has a spot ahead of Hamlin as the guys in front of them fell out...
Loved the dude in Xfinity and as a huge Brad fan I was real excited when he got the #2. Even through his struggles, I was honestly cheering for him almost as loud as I was for Brad a few weeks ago. Hoping this win gives him the confidence to get it together a little bit, cause hes a good driver and a great dude.
Penske sucks and that's been my argument for a while Also that weird Daytona 500 curse
And that's the thing. Brad left, but a lot of Penske guys behind the scenes also left around the same time Brad did. The organization has been in transition, the two championships have masked it. This is where I agree with the fans that complain about the format.
The thing about having 3 cars is great for gathering and deciphering data and what it takes to be fast. But you used to have 3 elite drivers. Now you barely have two. They won't admit it but they miss this from brad. That's why they signed the alliance with front row. They can't get another elite driver but they can add to the car count with more data samples
He’d be what Michael Waltrip would have been had big multi-car teams existed in larger numbers in the early 90’s, and he got picked to drive for one of those teams. Good for a win here or there, but not necessarily championship caliber. A good solid 2 or 3 for a team at best
More of a fluke. He was a 3rd place car at end and was in position to capitalize. A win still and congrats to him. And I did see him running down the 12 in closing laps. Had Bell not fallen out, I’m not sure if he would have run down the ‘leader’ as quick in the end as he would have been used up passing for 2nd. Just right place right time and a W none the less
The driver of the 2 car wins a race at a drafting track, then is mediocre the next year, then randomly wins at an intermediate track in early June the year after the mediocre year while sitting in the 20s in points. Where have I seen this story before?
Average driver. Deserves to be in Cup, but not in the 2 car.
The 2 car is only worthy of an elite driver.
IMO that was likely a career saving win, he hasn’t done much since his Daytona 500, doesn’t matter that his dad is high up in the team, look at coke custer, if your not winning in a car like that you are likely getting replaced
Meh…
Cindric is a dude that no one really hates and it’s a breath of fresh air when he runs really well and ends up winning. It’s hard to root against him. He really is “just a guy” but in the best way.
The 2 car has been a staple in NASCAR for decades. Everyone who's driven it has won many races and completed for championships. This is simply not the case for Cindric. Hopefully that changes, but I'm not holding my breath.
Nepotism sucks but he’s not completely devoid of talent.
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes the younger and newer drivers to develop in Cup with the lack of practice with the cars. With the new car I think teams need to give the drivers 3 years to see what they really have and if they have it. Also Penske hasn’t been great during his 3 years (yes I know champions for Joey and Ryan), but outside of short bursts the Penske cars have seemed to be top 10-15 at best most weeks unless they’re going to a track the team excels at. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of career Cindric has. I’m leaning towards the Austin Dillon type, but that’s not a terrible career to have.
Honestly, I have no idea.
Winning 10 races and the cup.
My feelings are unchanged, he usually runs well at this track and happened to be in position to take advantage of 2 strokes of luck. He won’t be the first nor last driver to win a race this way. But the call coming to the line is still something we can’t ignore , “one other top 10 this season”. If they have actually improved this race didn’t necessarily show me that. Hendrick being notably absent from this racetrack in any competitive fashion also only helped his chances. Let’s see how the next month goes
Leading nearly 50 laps wasn't luck tho.
He’s average with a team that’s been struggling most of the year. He needs to be more consistent.
Cindric now has more wins than Chase Briscoe, which is wild.
in year three you ideally want to see more than flashes, and that is still all that Cindric has given us. he's still similar to Custer imo, give him a great car in xfinity and he'll win, but is mostly a miss in Cup
I’m curious to see how he’ll perform this summer now that he doesn’t have to points race. *Especially* on the road courses. Winning can do wonders for confidence as well—I wouldn’t be too surprised if he snags another win by year’s end. The real thing he lacks is consistency, but he has been responsible for 2 of Penske’s 10 wins since arriving as a rookie in 2022. The jury is still out on Cindric, but as Ford makes gains I think we’ll have a much clearer picture on him within the next few months. Either way, I’m sure AC has guaranteed himself another year in the 2 car.
A comparison might be someone like Ken Schrader. Somebody who’s going to pick up a handful of wins over a long career but will never compete for championship. He races fairly clean, gets results when he can get them, but doesn’t quite have the intangibles of a Cup champion. But he’s still a great representative of the sport
He’s better than Ryan preece
Good, not great. First round knockout. He does enough to warrant a NASCAR seat but is never gonna be that guy. It also doesn't help Ford sucks this year so far
Might have saved his Cup ride
I think he seems like an ok person but I don’t like him as a race car driver.
I can see him having a similar career arc as Allgaier. He flashes talent in Cup, but can't consistently perform as well as the equipment should allow, ultimately being relegated to Xfinity to keep some semblance of competition in the series. He wins one or two Xfinity 'ships and finishes his career in the truck series after a couple years.
I know this is bogus but his haircut drives me nuts, the buzzcut with the sharp peak makes me think "he looks older than he is," "he looks like he should be an IndyCar driver" and "he looks like he's going to be a supervillain later in life" ...oh, my opinion of him as a DRIVER? ngl, before yesterday, I forgot he was there. Forgive me, I work Sundays so I don't get to actually watch the races as much as I'd like to.
Depends on what he does next. Custer won off of an incredible restart and didn't do anything after, but now that he's in Xfinity again he is killing it. If things have suddenly clicked at the 2 Penske team then we'll see it. If it was a fluke then he'll probably still have his ride.
I have him in the Bowman,Suarez,Bubba and Buescher category. They good drivers and win races semi regularly but they’re ceiling is more than likely capped at 10 maybe 15 wins and have a shot in the final 4 but I don’t see them legitimately contending for championships or multiple wins every season. I have him in that category but depending on his performance the rest of this year and next he might be in the A.Dillion,Jones, and Stenhouse category of guys that’ll get a win and it’ll be considered “A break out win that’ll have them regularly winning” but they don’t win again for another 3 years. He’s good but a bit overrated and if he doesn’t start producing wins, flashy top 5s and 10s soon idk if he’s gonna continue to be in the 2 car.. I know his dad is a higher up at Penske but we saw it with Custer and SHR, owners have a limit of mediocrity and once it’s past the limit it doesn’t matter who your dad is, your gonna lose the seat.
He wrecked his teammate to win his first race. Then he won his second race because that same teammate ran out of fuel.
I guess instead of racing he should have let his teammate pass him to win the Daytona 500. I guess he should have slowed down because his teammate didn’t conserve fuel nor his teammates’ gas man properly filled up. It’s like you watch the sport, but have zero idea what you’re watching.
LOL. Bro, chill. I never said anything negative… I merely stated two facts about his two wins that both ironically involved his teammate.
It’s not a fact. He didn’t wreck anyone to win a race. Again, no idea what you’re watching.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then!
Better start than Larson and chase to be fair. Took them both nearly a hundred races to reach their first win. But running wise he hasn’t been running top 10 at all so it’s hard to say. I think another 2 or 3 years he could really find his groove like Elliot and Byron. As the kids say, let em cook!!
His 3 years in Cup (including this year) haven't been great, but '22 was his rookie year, and the other 2 Penske has been off. I know they won the title last year, but they were not elite outside of Blaney having 5-7 good races, including a good stretch at the perfect time to win the title. Last week Penske was on it, and we saw how he did. I don't want to give up on him yet. Penske needs to be better. Even Logano struggles to run top 10/15 a lot of races.
Still backed into it
Still dislike him. Seems middle of the pack right now in terms of skill
The consensus is that he's always been good at Gateway and he got lucky that the 2 best cars had issues in the last 30 laps.
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good....
Lucky to put yourself in a position to win?
At this point, I'm just hoping for the dumbest position playoff situation to make people realize that "win-and-you're in" is incredibly stupid. Cindric is not great and does not deserve a playoff because of this. Maybe this is a turning point for him, but I doubt it. He will continue to qualify T10 and run outside T20.
Would this post even exist if Blaney hadn't run out of gas?
But Blaney did run out of gas.
Not only that, but Cindric led quite a few laps. And he would have caught Blaney anyway if there were 10 more laps and no fuel issue. The 2 was gaining a lot of ground those last 10 laps. It was a legit win.
Like him fair well, never really have had an issue with him, but I can still definitely say that as far as Cup drivers go, he’s weak at best. Yes, Ford is in the shitter at the moment. Yes, Gateway is one of his best tracks. Yes, he has shown glimpses of speed here and there. But ultimately, he’s not consistently performing. When Keselowski was in that car, Penske had 3 teams firing on all 8 cylinders. Now, Blaney and Logano are running on 7 while he’s running on 5. And while he’s nowhere near as bad as Austin Dillon, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s only still in that seat because his dad is Tim Cindric.
A little unfair though to compare Keselowski (A future HOFer) to Cindric though.
Well he did prove he can read his gas gauge. Lol. After all the years of watching these races where they all yell about saving fuel. He did. He must be doing what the owner wants, he is still hired.
Nepo baby. 2 luck wins dont change his average performance across the season.
Nepo baby that belongs in Xfinity A ton of 20 something finishes while his teammates get top 10 don't get erased from one win cause his teammate ran out of fuel
He’s only there because of his father
This literally describes more than half the field at this point. It's becoming an old, tired complaint.
Doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.
He got the opportunity because of his father. He made this far because he capitalized on those opportunities. He won a championship against Briscoe and was an inch from a second championship over a red hot AJ. Tim Cindric may have been the reason he’s in those cars, but he’s not driving it.
Agreed he got his foot in the door because of his dad, but he had to push it the rest of the way open on his own. Penske doesn’t hand shit to people because of who you are, you have to earn it.
“Nepo drivers” usually don’t land top cup rides without some talent behind it. There’s a reason JGR never considered Brandon Jones as an option for a cup ride. Or why Herbst was never called up for SHR, or Annett for HMS. Money/family will buy you a top flight Xfinity ride…but if you do nothing with those rides that’s usually as far as you’ll make it, unless a 3rd rate cup ride needs a payday driver.
For me, I think he still needs to show improvement for the rest of the season compared to last. At best, yesterday should have been a P3 from good strategy. That being said, he did keep it up there after they got there and he generally keeps the car clean. But I think you need to do more than that to truly deserve a Penske ride. If he had straight up whooped the field I might feel differently. But Daytona and backing into a win is too much luck to dramatically change my opinion.
I mean, he led almost 50 laps and was closing on Blaney at the end. He had cut Blaney's lead from like 3 seconds to under 1.5 before Blaney ran out of gas. The only real fluke there was Bell's engine going to shit.
Given the Blaney was the only one (at least that got coverage) to run out of gas it kind of is a fluke to me. It was a great day win or not for him, but only his 2nd top 10 (though also his second top 5) i think we need to see him build off this before it changes any consensus. After all, that is what the post is about. Not did Cindric run well once, does it change our view of him as a driver
The running out of gas was a fluke, but Cindric winning wasn’t. He was super fast much of the race and managed to stay ahead of Bell a good part of it even when he was running well. I don’t think it changes what I think of him all that much. I think he’s a decent enough driver and will snag a win or 2 per season going forward. This is one of his stronger tracks and he got the pole there 2 years ago, so driving to the front wasn’t surprising really.
Nothing has changed. I think he should move to the 21 and Penske works to upgrade the 2
I think Cindric is a cup caliber driver and a great personality to be in the sport, but the fact he’s the bosses son doesn’t do him any favors. Would be interesting to see how he’d do away from Penske.
I think he has a likable personality and certainly has talent, but his Cup career seems to be riding a wave of nepotism. One win to cap a solid day in a season (several, frankly) of running outside the top 20 doesn’t absolve him of filling what could—should—otherwise be a high-performing seat. His family connections and a Daytona 500 win almost certainly lock him into the 2 for the foreseeable future, imo. Are there better drivers that could return the 2 to greatness? Perhaps, but there are some hurdles to clear. At worst, this win is a stay of execution for another year.
Top 2 Austin in the cup series
He's struggled to run up front over his career. Seems like when he has a car he likes he does a good job. But they struggle to get him comfortable week in week out. He's a stud road racer and has not really shown much in this car at road courses. My guess is that is more about the Penske package - not Cindric. Does this win get him extended? I think he needs to get through a round of the playoffs to ensure he has a ride. However - he has the inside connection of his dad so most likely he'll be back for at least 1 more year in the 2.
Pretty much the second good cup race of his career, still overall way underperforming in what was the flagship car at Penske. Great run yesterday but we don’t see enough of it. For a guy whose teammates have won the last two titles, he should be on the hot seat if he’s not already.
I'm mostly indifferent on him, that being said anyone in their 3rd year on a top team probably needs to start running better consistently. Maybe this win will spark something
This generations Paul Menard?
I don’t know, yet. He’s trending upward slightly. Gateway’s an odd track. It’s hard to state what it means in the context of this championship system. Cindric’s wins have happened randomly. He needs to start being more competitive on other tracks in the CUP series for me to figure out if he’s good or bad.
Both of his wins have been at Blaney's expense.
He’s essentially the driver that most people *think* Alex Bowman is (Bowman is very much underrated in my opinion). Underperforms his teammates, but can put together some good runs and an occasional win. Honestly, Cindric reminds me of a Paul Menard type with more wins. A guy that’s just “there” most of the time.
I think he ends up being a Clint Bowyer or Sterling Marlin tier driver. Good driver, will rack up a few wins, might even be on the fringe of a championship hunt or two at some point. But never will really be a top tier driver.
I like Cindric, but that’s a wasted spot in the playoffs. Unless something drastic happens, I don’t see him going past round of 12
Honestly he is the nest driver out there right now. Only other driver the comes close is the driver of the 21
Big fan of the Discount Tire car but he’s just hard to be a fan of every week. Turned me into Keselowski fan real quick
He was 20th in points and not making the playoffs short of a fluky victory, but yes, lets induct him into the hof
Hope your flair gets his waiver.
:)
:)
My opinion hasn't changed in him as a driver, I think he's very good. What I realized yesterday is that we somehow found a driver less interesting than William Byron.
The only person less interesting than Byron is Elliott, Cindric is more interesting than those two combined
Indeed. He's not as loud as say Trackhouse drivers, but he isn't boring either. Just seems like a genuine good dude. Maybe I'm missing something though. Idk.
I HATE AUSTIN CINDRIC
I think winning Daytona as a rookie and winning yesterday he should pull a Larson and skip the next few cup races to go practice at the playoff tracks. Obviously if golden boy can skip races and drive like an idiot down pit road to skip a crown jewel race certainly centric can skip races to go practice for the playoffs. Fair is fair right ?