After a disappointing 2023 season, Austin Cindric was presumed to be in the hot seat driving the No. 2 Penske Ford this year. But he answered his critics with his performances on the racetrack and locked himself into the playoffs. This will be his second playoff appearance after his rookie year in 2022, thus cementing himself as a strong contender alongside his experienced teammate.

Although the Penske drivers are known to pull a trick or two up their sleeves during this time of the year. While that might be true for the likes of Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, Cindric has yet to establish himself in that sense. So what is that differentiating factor that the #2 team is rolling in in the playoffs?

Austin Cindric is banking on his experience for a solid playoff run

Back in 2022, Cindric wasn’t able to advance beyond the first round of the playoff. A streak of top-20 finishes isn’t exactly a recipe for success. But since then he has become a seasoned Cup Series driver, going toe-to-toe with some of the best in the sport. In anything, his last race at Atlanta was evidence that he isn’t going to be heckled and run mid-pack.

So he has come a long way from being a rookie driver competing in his first playoffs to being an experienced campaigner himself in 2024. Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck had a special on-track segment where the Penske driver was asked about his strengths and advantage in the playoffs. And he had a rather simple yet effective explanation of how he would go about his business.

“I know my competitors, and my competitors know me a lot more than maybe what they did in my rookie season. I think that’s an incredible advantage to me to kind of know the guys that I’m racing because it’s a very social style of racing that we do in NASCAR as compared to other motorsports. I think that puts me in a good spot to really understand what I’m going to have to do when I’m racing everyone on the track,” Cindric said on the Dirty Mo Media YouTube channel.

Austin Cindric registered a top-10 finish along with a stage win last weekend at Atlanta. As a result, he is now better positioned to tackle the challenge of two upcoming races. And who knows, he can just pull off some big upsets along the way. The likes of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson, who were touted to be clear favorites, now have their own concerns. So, an underdog story could well be in the making.

Will Cindric turn out to be a playoff surprise?

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Remember when Kevin Harvick was gutted to see Kyle Busch miss out on the playoffs over the likes of Cindric? He argued that drivers like Chase Briscoe, Harrison Burton, and Cindric, for that matter, won’t put up a fight. Well, it seems like the Penske driver listened to his podcast and is now eager to prove himself on the big stage. And he just might prove Harvick wrong.

Thanks to his splendid outing last weekend in Atlanta, Cindric now sees himself 27 points above the cutline. Providing him with the buffer to push himself more in the upcoming races. His qualification for the playoffs was indeed a lucky break, where he capitalized on Ryan Blaney’s misery at Gateway on the final few laps of the race. But leading 53 laps at a sketchy drafting track was him utilizing his race craft well last weekend.

Watkins Glen by no means is his favorite track, but he is known to be a good road racer from his Xfinity Series days. He does have an Xfinity Series win at the 2.45-mile road course at the Glen in the Xfinity Series. While he has struggled to churn out similar results like that in the Next Gen car, all he needs to do this weekend is to avoid trouble.

Another top-10 result should be enough for him to advance further into the playoffs. From there on, he can once again script a new plan to stretch his run as deep as possible.