How Penske ended its longest drought, 20 years on

Team Penske is a giant of modern motorsport. A perennial contender for championships in all three US series it competes in - including the 2018 NASCAR Cup and 2019 IMSA Sportscar Championship - it has won three of the last four IndyCar Series titles, with Josef Newgarden's second championship last year extending its total to 16. Simon Pagenaud's victory at the Brickyard last year gave Roger Penske his 18th Indianapolis 500.

Even with the coronavirus crisis delaying the start of the IndyCar season until June and shrinking the number of races from 17 to its current 14, it seems inconceivable that such a storied outfit as Penske - which scored its first Indycar win with Mark Donohue at Pocono in 1971 - could end 2020 without a victory, let alone next year and the year after that.

But just such a situation was facing the grandee team of US open-wheel racing entering the 2000 CART season, stuck one short of its elusive 100th victory having not added to its tally in the previous three years.

Twenty years ago today, the team's new signing Gil de Ferran finally ended that 54-race barren spell at Nazareth and went on to prevail in a five-way title-decider to seal the 2000 championship. As Autosport's US correspondent Gordon Kirby wrote in his season review, it was "one of the greatest turnarounds in the sport's history" after a 1999 campaign in which Penske had slipped into the realms of the also-rans, earning just one top-five finish for Al Unser Jr. at Cleveland.

Yet it was anything but a straightforward return to prominence. Then a constructor with its own design and manufacturing facilities in Poole, Dorset, Penske instead opted for an off-the-shelf racer produced by Reynard and made a clean break with two new drivers, as well as new engine and tyre suppliers.

As then head of engineering at Penske Racing Nigel Beresford puts it, "Roger had to basically set all of his pride and loyalty to one side - if the hardware isn't working, you've got to change it.

"In spite of his business associations, we had to benchmark everything and the way to do that was by going with the equipment that the other guys who were beating us had. Roger did what he needed to do."

Warning signs

After the shock of failing to qualify for the 1995 Indianapolis 500 - a season in which defending winner Unser Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi had won five races, and Unser finished runner-up in the points - Penske endured a winless 1996, but Paul Tracy's three wins on the bounce in 1997 with Nigel Bennett's PC26 looked to have allayed doubts that the team was on the slide.

The first of these, at Nazareth (below) - curtailing a 20-race winless streak that had been Penske's second longest after a 25-race stretch that included a 1974 season in which it didn't enter every event - came as Tracy resisted stern pressure from Michael Andretti, which he afterwards labelled "the greatest race of my life".

"Reynard came up with an aerodynamic concept for the car which provided much more consistent performance, maybe not the ultimate big numbers but more usable" Nigel Beresford

Then at Rio, Tracy was on hand to pick up the pieces when Bobby Rahal ran out of fuel with one lap to go, before a pass on Patrick Carpentier two laps from home sealed a hat-trick at Gateway. That put Penske on 99 wins as an owner, and Tracy into an 18-point championship lead.

However, it would prove an unrepresentative outlier against the rest of the season, as Tracy slumped to fifth at season's end with a run of five races in which he finished no better than 26th. He left to join Team Green for 1998, and a car designed and built by Penske Cars in Poole would never again win an IndyCar race.

Beresford identifies two underlying factors in contributing to Penske's woes: the rise of Reynard and Firestone.

Adrian Reynard's company had entered IndyCar in 1994 and, as per tradition, won its first race at Surfers Paradise with Andretti. With ex-Lola designer Bruce Ashmore installed as president of its North American operations, Reynard quickly expanded its customer base, the Malcolm Oastler-penned cars - which were designed around the Firestone tyres - proving popular with owners and engineers alike.

By contrast, Bennett's Penske designs became increasingly pitch sensitive, the result of a push for ultimate downforce figures.

Penske had long-enjoyed customer relationships with other teams that helped with development, but tellingly the Hogan and Bettenhausen teams both swapped Penske for Reynard for 1997.

"Reynard came up with an aerodynamic concept for the car which provided much more consistent performance, maybe not the ultimate big numbers but more usable," says Beresford, who joined Penske from the Tyrrell Formula 1 team to engineer Rick Mears in 1992. "It's like having an engine that's got 900 horsepower but it's all within 50 rpm.

"It was a more drivable, useable car and my perception was the pursuit of higher downforce numbers was done at the expense of less and less flexibility over a broad range.

"The PC26 was an absolute rocket-ship on short ovals where you're running in a much more controlled and narrower range of ride-heights. But on road courses it wasn't as good as the Reynard, which maybe didn't have quite as much overall downforce but had a much fatter curve."

Ashmore's successor as the head of the Lola design office, John Travis, had joined Penske in 1996 and initially worked alongside Bennett before taking over as chief designer when Bennett retired at the end of '97, revealing in his book, Inspired to Design, that his ideas were "getting a little stale".

Having seen Reynard progressively eat away at Lola's marketshare, Travis was now seeing Penske's 'unfair advantage' slipping too, and set about increasing the windtunnel programme.

"When Reynard came into it, they'd been winning races in other formulas, so they knew how to win races and they knew how to sell cars," says Travis, whose '96 Lola had won half the races that year, spread between Andretti's Newman-Haas machine and Tasman Motorsports pair Andre Ribeiro and Adrian Fernandez. "It was a big wake-up call - I had it when I was at Lola and then I had it again at Penske.

"When we made the change to Reynard, it was a bit of a shock when we put the car in the windtunnel. We thought 'bloody hell, this thing is nothing special'. It was made to a budget, but I have to hold my hat up to Malcolm and [aerodynamicist] Andy McAuley, they knew the direction that you needed to go in."

"It didn't matter what you did to the car, there was no way - unless you had those tyres - that you were ever going to win" John Travis

But Penske's biggest problem was clearly the deficiencies in the Goodyear tyres relative to Firestone, whose entry in 1995 - with Patrick Racing's Scott Pruett doing most of the donkey work - established a tyre war it was soon apparent that Goodyear was not going to win. Between 1996-99, Chip Ganassi Racing won four titles on the bounce with Firestone-shod Reynards for Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi and Juan Pablo Montoya, leaving Goodyear runners to fight over the scraps.

Andretti won five times in his Newman/Haas Lola in 1996, and once each in '97 and '98 after NHR switched to Swift. Other than Tracy's hat-trick in '97, the only other Goodyear victory came for De Ferran's Hall Racing Reynard in a fuel strategy race at Cleveland in '96.

"There's nothing that influences the performance of the car like the tyres," Beresford says. "When there are two tyre suppliers and you're on the wrong one, you can scrimp and scrape in the windtunnel looking for small gains here and there, but there's nothing like bolting on a superior tyre for translating into massive performance improvement."

Complicating matters, Penske was the Goodyear Racing tyre distributor for the Eastern half of the United States, so a switch to Firestone was never likely to be on the cards until Goodyear withdrew at the end of 1999.

"There was no way he was ever going to make that change," says Travis. "He said to me, 'just get on with it and make it work', but people don't realise how bad those tyres were. We had no chance of winning any races.

"The fundamental problem with Goodyear was they were still using carbon-black, natural rubbers, but Firestone were using synthetics. And the [silica] chemicals that Firestone were using couldn't be brought into the US so this compound was made in Japan and then shipped to Firestone, where the tyres were made.

"When Goodyear came up with a compound that would actually match the Firestone, it would only last for a couple of laps. As soon as they got into the tyre war, they just couldn't cope. And it didn't matter what you did to the car, there was no way - unless you had those tyres - that you were ever going to win."

"The Firestones were far more consistent and just a superior tyre," agrees Beresford. "We sat though lectures from Goodyear about how they understood this about the tyres and that about the tyre and whatever. But one of our engineers Tom German, who had worked for Firestone said, 'Goodyear know more about tyres, but Firestone just know how to make a better tyre'. And that was the gist of it."

Going radical to turn the tide

Travis' PC27 for 1998 was a radical attempt to negate its tyre disadvantage. Beresford recalls "an exquisite car that to a certain extent shifted the goalposts", but the clean-sheet design was plagued by teething problems.

In his book, Bennett singles out an entirely new longitudinal gearbox that was "designed to very marginal limits". Tracy's replacement Ribeiro retired eight times with mechanical problems, including a run of five DNFs in seven races linked to transmission failure, although Travis maintains that assembly errors were at fault for the many niggling issues in the first half of the season.

Ilmor's size zero engine is another commonly singled-out element - designed to optimise centre of gravity on the PC27, Beresford says tight packaging inhibited it's power output.

"One of the things Honda did in the late '90s to get more power was they packaged a very big plenum on the motor, but there simply wasn't the space on the PC27 to do that," Beresford says.

Travis counters this and says the new unit, which weighed 23kg less than its predecessor, had fundamental issues relating to the valve train that hampered its power output and reliability. Engine failure forced Unser out while leading the US 500 at Michigan, one of six mechanical DNFs that year.

Results, when they came, were patchy. A heavy crash at Nazareth for Ribeiro spooked Unser, who requested to race with the old PC26 and struggled to a lowly 15th, while Ribeiro failed to qualify his back-up car in front of the many corporate guests at Penske's local track.

"Marlboro basically told Roger 'you need to make some big changes' and the biggest change he could do was go to Reynard and get Honda engines and Firestone tyres. So that's what he did" John Travis

Never the best at qualifying, Unser only once started from the first two rows, but did at least finish second at Motegi and third at Milwaukee. Ribeiro retired at season's end having never looked likely to add to his tally of three wins scored with Tasman.

Nevertheless, Travis has "no doubt" that Penske had, in principle, the best car on the grid and would have been capable of winning races with Firestone rubber. Windtunnel figures showed that the PC27 produced more downforce and less drag than the Reynard Penske ran two years later.

"But it doesn't matter how much downforce you have - if you don't have tyre that's giving you that consistency, you can't win," Travis says. "That's why we did such a radical car [in the PC27]. It was either 'stick your head on the block and get it chopped off' or continue with what you had. And it wasn't good enough to make up for the [Goodyear] tyres."

Down to one full-time car in 1999, Penske chopped and changed between the updated 27B and the 1999 Lola, entering a second car intermittently for Alex Barron, ex-F1 driver Tarso Marques (below) - who replaced Unser for two races when he broke his leg in the opening round at Homestad - and rising star Gonzalo Rodriguez.

Tragically, Rodriguez was killed in practice at Laguna Seca when his Lola went straight on at the Corkscrew, while the team's new signing for 2000, Greg Moore, was also killed in a violent accident in the final round of the season at Fontana, putting the team at its lowest ebb.

"The 1999 season was just endless pain," says Beresford. "Right from the very first race where Junior broke his leg on the first corner, first lap - all the way through to losing Gonzalo and then Greg in the final races, everything about it was a nightmare year."

Wholesale changes

At Houston in September, the round following Rodriguez's accident, Roger Penske informed Beresford that sweeping changes would be coming. Penske had precedent for running cars built outside Poole, as Al Unser Sr had won the 1985 IndyCar title in a March 85C. But he was keeping his cards close to his chest.

"At that time, Roger wasn't entirely candid with everybody about what his plans were going to be for 2000," says Beresford. "He told various people various things.

"Some people he told we might go with Toyota engines, he said to others we might go with Honda engines, some people we might go with Lolas and some people we might go with Reynards. It was like he was deliberately not giving anybody the full picture, almost as if, if it got out - what we were going to be doing - then he would know who it was that had blabbed."

Unlike Goodyear, Mercedes remained in CART for 2000. But under pressure from title sponsor Marlboro, Penske (pictured below with Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug) elected to match up with the Reynard-Honda packages of Ganassi and Team Green, which had only missed out on the 1999 title on countback with Dario Franchitti. In so doing, he turned away from the Ilmor company he helped co-found in 1983 and with which Unser had famously conquered Indy in 1994 with a push-rod engine.

While Travis was "hugely disappointed" by the decision to buy an off-the-shelf car for 2000, he concedes that Penske made the most "logical" decisions possible.

"Marlboro basically told Roger 'you need to make some big changes' and that's what happened," he says. "The biggest change he could do was go to Reynard and get Honda engines and Firestone tyres, and that's what he did."

Phasing the changes in gradually would have been preferable, but Travis reckons 'the Captain' had no choice.

"The budget was being chopped because of the performance, and this is why it would have been chopped altogether from Marlboro if he hadn't made that decision," he says. "We weren't in a good position, the backing from Marlboro and the other sponsors just wasn't coming in because of the overall performance."

"We had a huge advantage as far as what we were doing with the dampers, what we understood as far as aerodynamics and being able then to optimise those for each track. That's probably where we made big differences" John Travis

Although he was no longer responsible for designing a car outright, Travis quickly knuckled down to business understanding the 2000 Reynard 2KI's strengths and weaknesses, using Poole's unrivalled resources to conduct windtunnel and seven-post rig tests to improve the vehicle dynamics.

"We knew everything about that car so we had a very good understanding of it and we could then start looking at how to develop it," says Travis. "It was no good just going out there and running what the rest of the customers were running because then you haven't got an advantage, you've just got to rely on your driver and strategy.

"We had a better windtunnel programme than [any other Reynard customer] did and we had more accurate data. We also were running seven-post rig tests, so we had a huge advantage as far as what we were doing with the dampers, what we understood as far as aerodynamics and being able then to optimise those for each track. That's probably where we made big differences."

This was helped by the customer support from Reynard, which Beresford praises as being "tremendous".

"They never hid anything from us," he recalls. "I can't say enough good things about Reynard and I'm sure their other customers were squealing like stuck pigs, but they never allowed that to stop their support just as I'm sure they did their other teams."

Change in fortunes

New signing De Ferran, joined by compatriot Helio Castroneves, helped to lift the team's spirits and contributed to a strong start to the new era, with de Ferran taking pole for the Homestad season opener - the team's first since Tracy at Milwaukee in 1997. But the rewards didn't come immediately.

Castroneves was ruled out early with engine problems, but after a conservative start, reporting that the car "was feeling a little twitchy", de Ferran had made his way back to the lead approaching his second and final stop.

"Things were looking good for Penske's 100th win as de Ferran rejoined the race, but luck turned against him just one lap later," reported Autosport's Kirby.

"Mauricio Gugelmin's car had run out of fuel and as he trickled to a stop on the backstretch, the yellow flag waved from the starter's stand. That put de Ferran the best part of a lap behind the leaders, most of whom were able to make their final stops under the yellow and get out ahead of the Penske Reynard-Honda."

Behind a string of lapped cars at the restart, de Ferran was unable to make a recovery and finished sixth.

De Ferran was on pole again at Long Beach but had a scruffy race, damaging his front wing running into the back of Vasser and then half-spun after contact with Alex Tagliani. Meanwhile Tracy came through from 17th on the grid to beat Castroneves, who Kirby remarked was "overcome in victory circle".

"I cried because I couldn't hold my emotions," Castroneves admitted.

Rio was a forgettable event for both cars, a broken exhaust ending de Ferran's day after Castroneves was forced out with gearbox woes, and de Ferran's ninth place - again hampered by a poorly-timed caution - was the high point of another tough race at Motegi. A persistent vibration left Castroneves out of the points, reporting numb hands and blurred vision afterwards.

By the time of the rescheduled round at Nazareth - delayed by seven weeks by a snowstorm - de Ferran was only seventh in the points. But after starting fifth, de Ferran took the lead at two-thirds distance and held off Gugelmin after a late caution to secure his first oval win.

"This has so much meaning it is hard to put into words," he said afterwards. "I can't really put it into perspective. It is indescribable. There is a strange feeling in my chest."

"It's great to get the 100th win," said Penske. "I didn't think it was going to take this long, but I'm glad that it's over."

For Beresford, the win was "a validation" of its course, while Travis recalls "an absolutely huge relief".

Both Travis and Beresford agree the experience of those fallow years set the precedent for how Penske operates today

"Once that was under their belt, it gave them back the status that Penske had prior to this doldrums period," he says.

De Ferran only took one more win that year, at Portland, while Castroneves won three times, but the elder Brazilian's greater consistency was enough to see off the challenge of Fernandez, Roberto Moreno, Kenny Brack and Tracy. His points tally at season's end was the fewest per race of any champion in CART's 22-year history, not that it mattered.

In 2001, Penske made use of its knowledge acquired the previous year and made more wholesale changes to the Reynard to secure a second CART title with de Ferran. That same year, it made a winning return to the Brickyard on its first appearance in the IRL, Castroneves giving Penske a first Indy 500 since 1994.

"We just went balls out," says Travis of the 2001 Reynard. "We changed everything - the suspension, the uprights, we only carried through the bare monocoque, engine installation and gearbox.

Adds Beresford: "The 2000 car was one step away from the factory Reynard, but the 2001 car was hugely different. Almost everything was ours, even down to the roll-hoop."

By 2002, Penske was a full-time IRL team and had added a second Indy 500 on the trot, albeit in controversial circumstances when Tracy passed Castroneves a fraction of a second after a caution period. In his final season before retiring at the end of 2003, de Ferran then made it three Indy 500s on the bounce.

Both Travis and Beresford agree the experience of those fallow years set the precedent for how Penske operates today. A key part of this resulted from the hiring of Tim Cindric from Team Rahal as the new president of Penske Racing, with a remit for ensuring the new pieces slotted into place.

"Tim made a massive difference as well in the day-to-day running of Penske Racing," says Beresford. "Roger is an industrialist running a massive array of businesses, so he needed somebody on the ground to sit over the NASCAR team and the IndyCar team and bring it all together.

"Ultimately within five years, everything had moved from disparate places around Charlotte and Reading, Pennsylvania to under one roof in Mooresville. And Penske Cars was shut down because the move into the IRL meant that the opportunity to constantly develop and enhance a car wasn't there."

The closure of Penske Cars was a sad end to a chapter that had started in 1973, when Penske bought the workshop from Graham McRae and installed Heinz Hofer and Geoff Ferris to design its first F1 car, the PC1. But when it came down to the crunch, the brainpower under the Team Penske awning could never be written off altogether.

Some things, it seems, never change.