The NTT IndyCar Series announced on Wednesday that all three Team Penske entries have been found to have violated the series’ Push to Pass rules at the opening St. Petersburg race in early March.
As a result, Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin have been disqualified from the results, and Will Power has been penalized 10 championship points. All three entries will forfeit their prize money and have been fined an additional $25,000.
Pato O’Ward, who originally crossed the line in second place, has been promoted to the top position and is now the official winner of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
By rule, IndyCar drivers are not allowed to use the onboard Push to Pass boost system on starts and restarts until the car crosses the alternate start finish line, which is typically located shortly before the end of the lap.
An electronic signal from the timing and scoring beacon typically gets sent to the car which then unblocks the feature and makes it available to drivers.
IndyCar officials noticed irregularities with Team Penske’s Push to Pass system during practice at the recent event in Long Beach, and then carefully reviewed the data from St. Petersburg to discover that the system had been raced in an unapproved configuration.
Newgarden and McLaughlin specifically used the boost system during at least one of the restarts, and were deemed to have gained an advantage from deploying Push to Pass during the disallowed time frame.
Because Power did not use the system during the restart periods, although it seems that his system would have allowed him to do so if he had tried, he was only penalized 10 points.
“The integrity of the IndyCar Series championship is critical to everything we do,” IndyCar President Jay Frye said.
“While the violation went undetected at St. Petersburg, IndyCar discovered the manipulation during Sunday’s warmup in Long Beach and immediately addressed it ensuring all cars were compliant for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
“Beginning with this week’s race at Barber Motorsports Park, new technical inspection procedures will be in place to deter this violation.”
Newgarden suffers most from the disqualification, as he was the dominant race winner for the season-opening event. He falls from first to 11th in the overall points standings, with his fourth place result in Long Beach the only event contributing to his total.
McLaughlin also falls dramatically from 10th to 29th in the points, with his gearbox failure in Long Beach now proving extra costly.
O’Ward climbs from sixth to fourth in the points with his promotion, and has been retroactively awarded his fifth career IndyCar win. Scott Dixon is the new points leader heading into the series’ third race of the 2024 season at Barber Motorsports Park.
Team Penske replied to the penalty announcement, explaining that a configuration used in the team’s hybrid testing was inadvertently left active for the race.
“Unfortunately, the push-to-pass software was not removed as it should have been, following recently completed hybrid testing in the Team Penske Indy cars,” said Team Penske president Tim Cindric.
“This software allowed for push-to-pass to be deployed during restarts at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix race, when it should not have been permitted.
“The No. 2 car driven by Josef Newgarden and the No. 3 car driven by Scott McLaughlin, both deployed push-to-pass on a restart, which violated IndyCar rules. Team Penske accepts the penalties applied by IndyCar.”
