‘The honeymoon phase is certainly over,’ reality of being a Cup Series rookie comes Knocking for 2022 Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric
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Austin Cindric
It was anything but a typical start to the season for a rookie in NASCAR Cup Series for Team Penske racing’s new driver Austin Cindric in 2022. He started the season with flying colors winning the 2022 season opener, the historic Daytona 500, in February. He became the first official Cup Race winner in the Nex-Gen car.
But now Austin Cindic is witnessing the harsh truth of hardship one has to endure to be a rookie in the cup series even if you are the son of the team’s President. Following his winning start at Daytona the 23-year-old had his best finish coming in COTA at P8, it remains his only Top 10 finish after Daytona. Austin Cindric was only able to secure a solo Top 20 finish coming at Las Vegas and his worst finish of the season so far, P32, Came at Atlanta.
Now the Rookie has come forth to express his opinion on how things are playing out for him being a rookie and his relationship with the team.
Find out what Austin Cindric had to say about “trying to figure out being a rookie in the Cup Series”
Austin Cindric acknowledged that the last week at Richmond was the first time he had a normal week as he had the luxury of not traveling during the weekend. He went on to say that he hadn’t had such luxury in a long time this year and added that he is now trying hard to settle in Cup Series as a rookie which he believe is hard.
“Honestly, starting last week was the first time I really had a normal week leading up to a race as far as not traveling during the week and a lot of different variables. From that standpoint, yeah, it’s been great to get a process down that I probably haven’t had the luxury of the first couple of weeks of the year,” Austin Cindric said.
“The honeymoon phase is certainly over; trying to figure out (being) a rookie in the Cup Series. It certainly isn’t easy,” Austin Cindric added.
Austin Cindric says he is still “trying to integrate” himself into the team to “figure out the new car and new situation”
Austin Cindric said that he is trying to figure out the Next-Gen car and as he faces a lot of “newness”. He went n to say that it is good to have the new environment as he can make the most out of bad days of racing and be happy about the days when he performs well.
“It’s trying to figure out a new car and new situation and put that on top of new competitors and new team members. There’s a lot of newness for me. A lot of that is an opportunity to grow, but in some ways, it’s good to have a new environment. But otherwise, just adapt and react and try to make the most of it and on the bad days, learn and on the good days, be happy they were good,” says Austin Cindric.
Austin Cindric opinionated that he is indifferent to the fact that he is now working with an entirely different set of individuals in his new team and added that the team is learning from bad and good results so far this season.
“I don’t think so. I think for me, mentality-wise I’m working with a very, very different group than I was last year, and that’s not for better or worse. It’s just different people that react and respond in different ways,” Austin Cindric said.
“I think it’s a little early to tell as far as if we’re to overreact to anything. But it’s a really tight-knit group on the 2 cars, so I’m just trying to integrate myself into that and get ourselves a process going, which I think is important. We’re a couple of races in and there’s been some good and some bad, and we’ll learn from it,” Austin Cindric added.
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Justin P Joy
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