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December 16, 2024

Austin Cindric assesses young Cup career: ‘I feel like I’ve had three rookie seasons’


Entering his full-time NASCAR Cup Series career in 2022, Austin Cindric was off to a dream start.

He won the Daytona 500 and followed up a week later by grabbing the pole in Fontana, California. While he didn’t win that race in Southern California, it seemed like Cindric was going to be a championship contender from his first laps turned as a rookie. However, the three-year veteran has reached a plateau at the Cup level. Cindric hasn’t been bad by any stretch of the imagination but when you consider the level Team Penske competes at annually and that the organization has won the last three Cup Series championships, the 26-year-old wheelman has some catching up to do.

Cindric would even admit that he was not pleased with how his first few seasons have gone at NASCAR’s top level.

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“I feel like I’ve had three rookie seasons to start my Cup career,” Cindric said on Nov. 22 ahead of the NASCAR Awards.

In 108 races piloting the No. 2 Ford, Cindric has amassed 10 top fives, 22 top 20s and has put together a combined average finish of 19.5. His best season, statistically, was his actual rookie season in 2022, where he scored five top fives and nine top 10s, highlighted by the win in the “Great American Race.”

But since that two-week stretch to kickstart his full-time career, Cindric has been meager with his only other Cup victory coming this past season at World Wide Technology Raceway after his teammate Ryan Blaney ran out of fuel while taking the white flag.

With Cup Series teams becoming more competitive across the board on a weekly basis, the jump from one of the lower series to Cup has never been more challenging.

“I think it is a big jump,” said Cindric, the 2020 Xfinity Series champion. “And it depends on your perspective, right? But I feel like there are always going to be challenges and I feel like the Cup Series has never been more competitive, race to race, position to position, than it ever has been. So I feel like the margin for error is smaller than it’s ever been. I love it because I feel it’s all about showcasing the best individuals. When you’re not the best on a certain day, there’s a penalty for it and it’s your performance.”

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Cindric’s humble start can be compared to that of teammate Joey Logano, who had just one win in his first three seasons and failed to make the playoffs up until his fifth season when he moved from Joe Gibbs Racing to Team Penske in 2013.

Sixteen full-time seasons later and Logano is the only active three-time series champion and still has many years of his prime left to go at 34 years old.

With Logano and Blaney hoisting the Bill France Cup the last three seasons, it gives Cindric in-house mentors as he tries to follow in the footsteps of his teammates to become a consistent title threat himself.

“It really is an open book between all three teams,” Cindric said. “I feel like people say that, but it really is the case. I think the best example that I have with Ryan and Joey, obviously, both of them are very successful, is watching Ryan over the last three or four years really step up into a leadership role on the team. But for me, the two of them achieve success in so very different ways of how they are able to be successful and where they get performance and where they find the ability to win the championship.

“So for me, I think that’s a great example of you have to do what’s best for you and your team and utilize the best resources in a way that makes the most sense for you and your group.”

The midst of the offseason will offer Cindric a chance to assess what he’s done and what he still needs to do to be at the level of his title-winning teammates. And if you’re wondering how motivated Cindric is to join the champion’s club in the coming years …

“More than you’ll ever know.”

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