(Photo credit: Jason Allen-Imagn Images)

Following the 2021 NASCAR season, Austin Cindric was about to enter a pressure-packed situation.

With Brad Keselowski leaving Team Penske to become an owner-driver at RFK Racing, a Cup Series seat was open at Team Penske. But it wasn't just any vacant ride. It was the famed No. 2, which had been the flagship car of Roger Penske's NASCAR operation since 1991. And in 2022, Cindric was going to be behind the wheel.

Driving in the Cup Series is a job that inherently comes with pressure. Driving for an organization with a championship pedigree such as Team Penske only ramps that pressure up. But having your name emblazoned on the most iconic car in a team's stable is a role few drivers are built for. It's a role that's both unenviable and the most coveted in the garage.

Suddenly, Cindric, who was then just 23 years old, had the weight of the world on his shoulders and the eyes of a company following his every move.

Since then, Cindric's progression as a driver has been a relatively slow burn, but he is finally proving that he's worthy to drive the most historic car in Penske's NASCAR stable.

That initial pressure in 2022 quickly faded into the salty air of Daytona Beach, Fla., when Cindric won the Daytona 500 in just his eighth Cup Series start. Not only had Cindric won NASCAR's biggest race to start his tenure in the No. 2, but the win guaranteed him a playoff berth and essentially locked up the Rookie of the Year award in the first race of the season.

Two years later, the excitement surrounding Cindric after his Daytona 500 victory had vanished. Despite his solid rookie campaign, he and the No. 2 team regressed in 2023, finishing 24th in the standings. Through the first 14 races of 2024, things weren't much better, as Cindric was only 20th in the standings.

But outside St. Louis on June 2, 2024, Cindric won the second race of his Cup Series career. In the postseason, he made an inspired run through the Round of 16, advancing to the Round of 12 for the second time in three years. All of a sudden, the Penske No. 2 looked like itself again.

Just like in 2024, the excitement of a victory and a playoff run was wearing off early in 2025. A 50-point penalty handed down to Cindric following an incident with Ty Dillon at Circuit of the Americas had him mired in 35th in the Cup Series standings. While he'd managed to climb up to 20th going into Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway, missed opportunities to win the Daytona 500 and at Atlanta loomed large as the No. 2 team struggled to find consistent results.

None of the extenuating circumstances mattered to Cindric, however, as he powered through to a thrilling victory over Ryan Preece in the Jack Link's 500 this past Sunday, earning his third playoff berth in four seasons at Team Penske.

'You keep swinging the bat the right way, eventually you're going to hit a homer,' Cindric said in his post-race news conference.

The win at Talladega was certainly a home run for Cindric, but it was also another base hit in the grand scheme of his career. Over the past year, Cindric appears to be coming into his own as a Cup Series driver and the man who bears the iconic No. 2 on the side of his car every week.

When Cindric won at Gateway in 2024, many thought he'd be a Round of 16 exit come playoff time. But Cindric proved the doubters wrong and made the Round of 12. His Talladega win seemed to do the same thing, after great runs at Daytona and Atlanta early in the season failed to bear meaningful fruit on the results sheet and had fans questioning if he had what it took to close the deal.

2025 has been a much more consistent year for Cindric and the No. 2 team overall. Without the 50-point penalty he incurred at COTA, Cindric would sit 10th in the Cup Series standings. Of his three finishes outside the top 20 so far this season, only one -- a 25th-place finish on an overall abysmal day at COTA, can be attributed to a lack of speed -- as a crash at Atlanta and battery issues at Martinsville were out of Cindric's control.

Top-20 finishes and a top-15 spot in points aren't the high-water marks Penske is looking for, but the fact that Cindric is competing inside the top 20 on a more consistent basis is a positive sign. So too is that he was able to close out a superspeedway win at Talladega after failing to do so at Daytona and Atlanta.

Time will tell whether or not the 26-year-old will be the next champion to pilot The Captain's longest-serving vehicle, but Cindric has earned his stripes and is in a position to get the No. 2 to victory lane on a consistent basis.

--Samuel Stubbs, Field Level Media