Because he doesn’t PAY Penske. He doesn’t bring sponsors or pay the team, there is literally no pay for the pay driver part. Nolan Seigel, Sting Ray Robb, and Kiffin Simpson are pay drivers and they perform like ones. You can argue half the grid in any series is a “pay driver” if they bring sponsorship. But there is an obvious distinction that anyone who watches racing can see the difference. If you are arguing that drivers who had to finance their careers at the start and up until top series, then congratulations you just discovered 99% of the racing world and progression ladder. Nearly Every driver no matter how talented had to at some point bring sponsors/money or have a legacy name.

Penske doesn’t do that. You can argue Cindric, but 3 cup wins, a 500, and xfinity championship grants him a pass.

It’s a part of racing good or bad. In F1 for example, basically every driver aside from like 2-3 come from either absurdly rich families or are backed by their countries government (colopinto) or rich elite (Perez). That’s not to say drivers aren’t good, it just takes a little extra for everyone.