Everywhere
All of success from a team comes from people behind it, who set it up and lead it to glory. Roger Penske has done this more than once. A former racing driver himself, he first entered Mark Donohue for his team in 1967. In a Chevrolet Camaro and won the following two championships. Meanwhile they entered open-wheel racing as well and quickly triumphed. Donohue first clinched victory in the POCONO 500, then at the INDY 500. Next, in 1974 and based in the UK, the team marked ist debut in FORMULA 1 with their carrying driver. Mournfully, a discrete start came before the fatal accident of Mark Donohue at the 1975 AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX. John Watson was called to compete for Penske and one year later, on the same track, won Penske Racing's single GRAND PRIX. Losing the main sponsor did not enable any continuation. However, the team was firmly settled in other series, such as Can-Am, where the co-developed the blatantly quick Porsche 917. Then, together with fellow team-owners, Penske founded CART in 1978, what later merged to INDYCAR.
The broadest successes
The debut eason ended with Rick Mears' title. Penske won further five championships in the 80s, but none in the early 90s. During the 1994 CART season, dominance desciribed what Penske achieved. Al Unser Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy were behind the wheel of the groundbreaking PC-23. Out of 16 races, they won all but four and took ten pole positions. In an unpredicatble competition, these results could only be capitalised in 1-2-3 championship positions, the only team to score it. Yet, this was followed by a severe declince. Already at the 1995 INDY 500, Unser Jr. and Fittipaldi entered qualyfing with four different cars and failed the objective. With Reynard chassis for 2000, Penske went back to the top with Gil de Ferran. The Brazilian won back-to-back titles and as the team left CART to comepte in IRL, he nearly won a third crown, as his team-mate Hélio Castroneves finished third. The fellow Brazilian ultimately became a Penske racer for 21 Seasons, a feat still unmatched. In the series, Penske won 248 races to date, as well as 17 drivers' championships and 20 INDY 500 editions.
Race, win, repeat
NASCAR and IMSA are the other two competitions Penske currently disputes. In NASCAR, they racked up five titles and curiously, Joey Logano, winner of three CUP SERIES, scored exactly 5040 points during all three years. Sportscars and Supercars have proven to be and still are successful territory, with seven titles to date. The greatest endurance race, the 24h of Le Mans, has not delivered the rewarding crown, however. After five entries (but without any Penkse chassis) the American team is yet to collect the imposing winner's trophy. In INDYCAR, where Roger Penske achieved the highest glory with his people, a Penske driver finsihed in the top-3 of the standings. In 2016 they replicated a 1-2-3 with Simon Pagenaud, Will Power and Castroneves. Penske is etched into race car history, and is winning race after race...