Diuguid Tries to Explain Why Penske IndyCar Drivers Aren’t Doing Daytona

Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin both tested the Penske Porsche 963 in IMSA’s November test, so IndyCar fans were pretty excited about them having a crack at the 2026 Daytona 24. Instead, Penske went with three-driver lineups in both cars (including Laurin Heinrich, which rules), even though it is very normal for GTP teams — including Penske — to field four drivers in the 24-hour race.

I and many other observers find it a little strange to choose to stretch the drivers further when you’ve got two monsters raising their hand to jump in. That raises the question of whether the IndyCar guys couldn’t hack it this year, which Penske Racing President Jonathan Diuguid had to insist to press is not the case:

“The November test is difficult to glean performance stuff[,] but I think if you did glean performance [data], Josef and Scott were if not the top performing guys in those cars, they were on part with the guys we had there.”

(Newgarden, remember, was in the 2024 incarnation of this car and helped win Penske his first Rolex since 1969.)

Rather, Diuguid told Sportscar365, they decided to run three-driver squads for hand-wavey “administrative” reasons having something to do with driver seat time fairness, making fewer seat inserts, and fewer setup compromises.

To be clear, I absolutely believe this explanation to extent that I am already too bored to know the reasoning in more detail. I just always prefer the most fun driver lineup.

Scotty, we now know, does have a Rolex ride. Josef is not participating.