Michael McDowell is severely punished by NASCAR for Pocono

Michael McDowell A NASCAR Cup Series driver was penalized 100 points for an incorrectly adjusted part on the #34 Ford Front Row Motorsports, which finished on Sunday 6th at Pocono Raceway.

Crew chief Blake Harris was fined $100,000 and issued a four-race suspension. If McDowell wins one of the five remaining races in the regular season, the team will lose 10 playoff points.

The team also earned 100 owner points for the L2 offense announced late Tuesday afternoon. The sanction was issued in connection with Sections 14.1 C, D and Q of the NASCAR rulebook that govern the rules applicable to the chassis and overall assembly of a vehicle with parts supplied from a single source on a next generation vehicle.

A Front Row Motorsports spokesperson told NBC Sports that the team had no immediate comment on the penalty, but would likely address it with a statement on Wednesday.

The race car introduced for the 2022 Cup season is largely a bespoke vehicle, meaning it’s assembled with parts, parts and chassis provided by third-party vendors. In the first 73 years of NASCAR’s first series, teams largely built race cars on their own.

With the change in philosophy with the next generation, NASCAR has pledged to issue huge penalties to teams that changed the car. This is the third such example.

Brad Kiselowski‘steam Received a similar penalty of 100 points for an incorrectly modified shock absorber cover After the March 20th race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

And on Sunday, NASCAR eliminated the two best cars in the Denny Hamlin And the Kyle Bush After the Pocono race because their Toyotas tape was incorrectly applied to the front ends. Joe Gibbs Racing Elected to refuse to appeal the sentence.

It was the first time in 62 years that NASCAR disqualified a race winner during a post-track check at the track.

The violation was found on McDowell’s car during a search at a research and development center in Concord, North Carolina. McDowell cars and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. It was selected “at random” by NASCAR for further scrutiny.