Josef Newgarden has apologised to IndyCar, its fans and his team after he was disqualified from the opening round in St. Petersburg.
The Penske driver was stripped of victory in the season-opening round by IndyCar two days ago, six weeks after the event was held.IndyCar officials discovered prior to last weekend’s race at Long Beach that the three Penske cars of Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Will Power had a software setting that could enable them to use the Push-to-Pass boost system during race starts and restarts, when it is not permitted under the regulations.
Newgarden and McLaughlin were both disqualified from the race results as they were found to have gained a competitive advantage from using Push-to-Pass outside of permitted times. As Power was deemed not to have used his Push-to-Pass illegally, he was allowed to retain his classification – promoted to second as a result of his team mates’ disqualifications – but was docked 10 championship points.
Speaking to media for the first time since the announcement, an emotional Newgarden told media including RaceFans he took full responsibility for the rules breach.
“I think at this point it’s really important to look at the facts of what happened,” Newgarden said. “And the facts are extremely clear.
“There’s no doubt that that we were in breach of the rules at St. Petersburg. I used Push-to-Pass at an unauthorised time twice on two different restarts. There’s really nothing else to it other than that. Those are the rules and we did not adhere to them.
“What’s really important about that too, is there’s only one person sitting in the car. It’s just me. And so that responsibility and the use of the Push-to-Pass in the correct manner falls completely on me. It is my responsibility to know the rules and the regulations at all points, and to make sure that I get that right. And in that regard, I failed my team miserably – a complete failure from my side, to get that right.”
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Newgarden described the situation as “embarrassing” and apologised for failing to adhere to the rules.
“If there’s anything that I wanted to come say too, I want to deeply apologise to our fans, our partners, my team mates, the competitors that I race against – anybody that’s in our community,” he said.
He claimed he had used Push-to-Pass in the mistaken belief that this was in accordance with the regulations. He revealed he also tried to use it during last weekend’s the race at Long Beach, by which point the car’s software had already been modified to prevent it being used outside of the permitted times. He insisted that it was an honest mistake, rather than a deliberate attempt to subvert the rules and gain an unfair advantage.
“The tricky thing about this whole situation is I didn’t know I did anything wrong until Monday after Long Beach,” he explained. “It’s the first time I heard that I broke rules.
“You can call me every name in the book. You can call me incompetent, call me an idiot, call me an asshole, call me stupid – whatever you want to call me. But I’m not a liar. The story that I know, which is the truth, is almost too convenient to be believable.
“I didn’t leave St Pete’ thinking we pulled something over on somebody. I didn’t know that we did something wrong until this week. And then I’ve had to wrestle with the fact that ‘how do you explain this situation to people’? I know what happened, I know why it happened, and I don’t think it’s very believable, even when I try and tell the story back. I don’t think any of us believe it’ll be believable to somebody. But it’s the truth.”
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Following IndyCar’s announcement of the disqualification, both Power and McLaughlin made public statements about the controversy, with McLaughlin insisting he had only used Push-to-Pass when he was not permitted once “out of habit”. However, Newgarden insisted he wanted to wait for an opportunity to speak to the media first to address the incident.
Newgarden said he had spoken to team and IndyCar owner Roger Penske about the incident who was very unhappy with the situation.
“I have spoken to him,” said Newgarden. “I’ve spoken to him once and he did not take it well whatsoever, as you could imagine. I was interrogated at first.
“I don’t want to speak on his behalf, but I’ve not met somebody with higher integrity than that man. And I mean that. It wasn’t taken well.”
As a result of his disqualification, Newgarden has lost the lead of the IndyCar championship heading into this weekend’s race at Barber Motorsports Park. He has fallen to 11th in the standings as a result of losing his 50 points from St. Petersburg, with Scott Dixon now assuming the points lead ahead of Colton Herta.
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MichaelN
26th April 2024, 16:41
How can it be a ‘habit’ (McLaughlin) and ‘thought it was okay’ (Newgarden) when the rules state that the P2P system cannot be used until a car has passed the alternate S/F line, which – unless I’m completely off base – is before the pit entry. In other words, it’s nowhere near the normal S/F line and this effectively means the P2P can’t be used on the first lap after a restart?
Unless the rule is badly worded, and the system is allowed once a car passes the alternate S/F line prior to the crossing the S/F line on the restart (i.e. to allow it to be a factor on the restart out of the final corner). But I don’t think so. The rule states in full:
14.19.16 Race Starts and any Race Restart that occurs before the lap prior to the white flag or prior to three minutes remaining in a timed Race Event will have the Push to Pass system disabled and will be enabled for a given Car once that Car reaches the alternate Start/Finish line.
So unless the second option is the case, the excuses by the two drivers don’t really ring true. Which is very unfortunate because these two have done such great work to promote Indycar… but… yeah. It’s not a good look.
osnola
26th April 2024, 17:57
Enough said. He called all the names you can use, he F@#$ up, he received punishment and we are moving on.
anon
26th April 2024, 20:49
osnola, the problem here is that a lot of people involved find the defences that Newgarden put forward seem inconsistent with the claims from Power and McLaughlin, and serious doubt has been cast on the claims that either Penske or it’s drivers were using this by accident.
Firstly, the claim from Newgarden that he thought that there had been a rule change seems difficult to believe, given that Power and McLaughlin have both said that they were fully aware that no such rule change had taken place.
Secondly, the Racer website has been looking at the defence that the drivers and Penske themselves have put forward, and looked at the control systems for the Push to Pass system. They have pointed out that Penske’s claim that this was down to an error in the ECU software is not credible due to multiple factors (not just because of the way that the ECU software operates, but also because of the way that the signals are transmitted from race control to the cars themselves to enable or disable the Push to Pass system during the race).
To get the Push to Pass system to operate in this way would require deliberate and intentional action on Penske’s part to spoof the signal from race control, and could not have been accidental in nature – indeed, Chevrolet has itself pointed out that Penske’s defence doesn’t stack up.
Thirdly, the Racer website has received reports that suggests Penske’s drivers might have been cheating for some time. According to them, at least one team raised a formal complaint in 2023 and was sending footage from the onboard system to IndyCar’s regulators that suggested abnormal use of the Push to Pass system when it should have been disabled.
That is why people don’t just want to brush this under the carpet and move on – because few believe this is an accident, and there appear to be credible allegations that the team has been cheating for longer than they’ve admitted to.
MichaelN
28th April 2024, 12:04
Wasn’t the story/excuse/explanation that they ran the ‘hybrid test’ software that had the P2P available at all time, i.e. didn’t require said signal? That would mean there was no need to do something quite so elaborate.
anon
28th April 2024, 15:28
MichaelN, that was what Penske claimed, but the article pointed out that they had spoken to some of the people who programme the ECU who fundamentally disagreed with Penske’s claims.
According to them, there aren’t any differences in the versions of the software that have been used during the hybrid tests and the standard software that would be used during a normal race weekend.
Furthermore, the ECU software that controls the use of Push to Pass is not produced by the engine manufacturers, but by IndyCar itself. The manufacturers have to physically plug a computer into the cars before the pre-race warm up session and then upload a specific file, provided to them by IndyCar’s own officials, that enables the ECU to activate Push to Pass, and sets the parameters that are in use for that particular race weekend – until that point, Push to Pass is disabled.
Even then, Push to Pass only works if the ECU is also receiving a signal from the central logging unit (CLU). The CLU – which, amongst other duties, controls the transponder unit and lap time data – is only meant to give that signal if, in turn, it is receiving a signal from race control confirming that Push to Pass is active.
Even if Penske claim that there was different software on the ECU to begin with, the software should have been overwritten when the specific instructions for the race in St Petersburg would have been uploaded onto the ECU before the pre-race warm up session for that race. The same thing should have happened again in Long Beach, where Penske were caught using Push to Pass in the warm up session for that race, which was what gave away what happened in St Petersburg.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
26th April 2024, 17:57
They should be banned for season. The others refused to admit that it was their fault and one said it gave no advantage which is just so wrong. Of course it gives an advantage which is the whole point of push to pass.
Don
26th April 2024, 18:19
We’ll never really know the whole truth. Barber should be interesting.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
26th April 2024, 19:00
Good old DRS, eh? Don’t get any of this nonsense.
MichaelN
27th April 2024, 15:38
Back in 2012 and 2013 there were some races where the software was giving all sorts of problems and it could (sometimes?) be used outside of the zones. China ’12 and Australia ’13 come to mind. Some drivers used it inappropriately, but at rather meaningless moments so nothing came of it.
T
27th April 2024, 1:37
Ha ha, what?
Are you sure about that Josef?
Really sure?
Roger Penske and “higher integrity” is an oxymoronic statement!
T
27th April 2024, 2:16
oh my goodness, Josef what a masterful play!!
you now have SO MUCH leverage during a contract negotiation year ugh 10/10 no notes
now you have weight to throw around after falling gracefully on your sword
maybe you can use this to join the ten million dollar club
Don
27th April 2024, 2:50
Quite the drama. But the team’s paid a heavy price in the standings. This PTP glitch/cheat is something that will never happen again, as IndyCar will make it impossible to do so.
rprp
28th April 2024, 12:48
The team has got off lightly. Disqualification from the race is standard if you’ve broken the rules unwittingly. The 10 points docked for Power is the only punishment they’ve had.
Cheating, which is almost certainly what this is, should bring more than just race disqualification.
skydiverian (@skydiverian)
29th April 2024, 5:14
@rprp It isn’t in Indycar. Sebastien Bourdais won the 2015 Milwaukee race with an underweight car. Team were fined $5K. No other punishment, he kept the win because they deemed that he had no genuine performance advantage. In F1, that’s an automatic disqualification.
Which is fairly standard in US based sports – the intent being that attendees leave knowing the final result above all else, something I’ve never agreed with.
Indycar DQing drivers from a race is very rare – I can’t think of another instance of any DQ in the last decade. Utterly justified based in the circumstances.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
27th April 2024, 9:14
I’m amazed that they could use it without being noticed though. Already Indycar having the control electronics being exposed like that and subject to alterations is a bit baffling, but that no competitor even noticed it is curious.
In karting when you get a worse kart than others it takes only a few meters to know you have a bad one, how on earth nobody noticed those guys push-passing on the first lap ?
bull mello (@bullmello)
28th April 2024, 0:43
I still wonder who is responsible for this debacle of cheating.
My respect for Roger Penske has been for decades. Never seen him do anything like this.
I would think someone might be fired over this.
rprp
28th April 2024, 12:50
The team has got off lightly. Disqualification from the race is standard if you’ve broken the rules unwittingly. The 10 points docked for Power is the only punishment they’ve had.
Cheating, which is almost certainly what this is, should bring more than just race disqualification.