Team Penske’s Austin Cindric shares his opinions on NASCAR’s “big” DVP policy update ahead of 2025 season 

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series winner Austin Cindric recently weighed in on his thoughts regarding NASCAR's changes to the damaged vehicle policy (DVP) ahead of the 2025 season. The comments come prior to Cindric competing in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, an annual sports car endurance race held at the Daytona International Speedway.

Ahead of this season, NASCAR changed its DVP rule by stating that drivers involved in an accident are allowed to take their car back to the garage and make repairs, rather than be automatically eliminated from the race.

In an interview with Frontstretch reporter Phil Allaway, the driver of the #2 Team Penske Ford gave his thoughts on the changes, believing it's a "big" difference.

"As far as the DVP, I mean it's a big change. Teams are probably rushing to deal with it as we speak. I talked quite a while with Brian about that and what it changes for the teams and what it changes for my feedback with the car," Cindric said. (8:40 onwards)

The 26-year-old went on to say when a driver has a damaged car, the goal is to maximize it as much as possible. However, the Ohio native pointed out it's difficult to do much with it and the most you'll probably get out of a wrecked car is other cars that crash out afterward.

Yet, Cindric believes the revision of the DVP is needed with the NextGen car as it's a more durable vehicle than the previous cars, which was when the DVP was implemented. Cindric added:

"You get to where you're three laps down or more, it's really difficult to recover anything past cars that wreck out from there on out. So, being able to understand what the best ways we can maximize the new rules I think will be important. In a lot of ways, I think it was good to have those revisions with this car because those rules were made with an old car. Now, this car can take a lot more and it can probably be repaired with a lot more confidence." (9:03 onwards)

Austin Cindric set for fourth full-time Cup Series season with Team Penske

Austin Cindric returns to the cockpit of the #2 Team Penske Ford for his fourth season with the team in 2025. He joined Team Penske's Cup program ahead of the 2022 season after spending three seasons with their Xfinity Series program and winning a championship in 2020.

Cindric kicked off his Cup Series career with a bang by winning the 2022 Daytona 500. The win qualified Cindric for the playoffs and he ended up finishing 12th in the points standings. He fell into a slump in 2023, however, failing to win a race and finished 24th in the standings.

Cindric returned to the playoffs in 2024 after scoring his second career win at Gateway Motorsports Park. He finished a career-best 11th in the standings.