Pato O’Ward has been declared the winner of IndyCar’s season-opening race after two of the three Penske drivers were disqualified.
Josef Newgarden won the first race of the championship at the St Petersburg street circuit but has been disqualified from the results along with team mate Scott McLaughlin. Will Power has kept his result but has been docked ten points by IndyCar.The Penske team were deemed to have illegally manipulated how their cars’ Push-to-Pass system operated, which allowed them to make use of the boost at the race start and at restarts – where it is forbidden until drivers reach a certain point – without the infringement being detected.
IndyCar determined both race winner Newgarden and McLaughlin had “gained a competitive advantage” from using Push-to-Pass at restarts in violation of the regulations, while Power had not. Both Newgarden and McLaughlin have been retroactively disqualified from the final classification of the race as a result. Penske has been fined $25,000 per car and will lose any prize money gained over the event.
McLaren driver Pato O’Ward, who originally finished second, is therefore promoted to first place. It is the team’s first win since 2022.
Power, who finished fourth in the original classification, has been promoted to second place as a result but has lost 10 of the 40 points he would have received. Newgarden and McLaughlin’s disqualifications also promotes Colton Herta onto the podium in third.
IndyCar explained that officials had detected a possible violation by the Penske cars during Sunday’s warm-up session ahead of the Grand Prix of Long Beach last weekend. IndyCar have not taken any action against Penske over that race.
IndyCar president Jaye Frye said that action would be taken to ensure no teams would be able to subvert the Push-to-Pass rules in this way in future.
“The integrity of the IndyCar Series championship is critical to everything we do,” Frye said.
“While the violation went undetected at St Petersburg, IndyCar discovered the manipulation during Sunday’s warm-up in Long Beach and immediately addressed it ensuring all cars were compliant for the 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.”
Penske team president Tim Cindric insisted that the violation was down to a software error carried over following the team testing the series’ upcoming hybrid power units but said Penske accepted the penalties.
“Unfortunately, the Push-to-Pass software was not removed as it should have been, following recently completed hybrid testing,” Cindric said.
“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 number two car driven by Josef Newgarden and the number three car driven by Scott McLaughlin both deployed Push-to-Pass on a restart, which violated IndyCar rules.”
The disqualification sees Newgarden lose his place at the top of the championship standings, falling to 11th and promoting Long Beach winner Scott Dixon to first place. Herta is now second, two points behind Dixon, with Alex Palou promoted to third.
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raddie (@raddie)
24th April 2024, 15:53
What a comedy!
Asd
24th April 2024, 17:14
A comedy? Why?
There was a technical violation of the rules and IndyCar were great to detect it and hand out penalties. Everything was done correctly and professionaly.
On a side note – what a terrible season start for Newgarden.
Steven Williamson
26th April 2024, 5:55
Complete bull bleep comment! Another team turned them in for this last year using video evidence of Penske drivers using PTP when it was supposed to be disabled, but surprise, surprise, surprise! Nothing was done about it, Penske owns PenskeCar!
Leroy (@g-funk)
24th April 2024, 16:10
Penske Perfect! /s
Flying Lap
24th April 2024, 16:27
Roger the Dodger indeed.
Osnola
24th April 2024, 16:46
Forgetting to delete the software is stupid. But using the option during a start, well knowing its illegal is a DQ and rightly so.
sam
24th April 2024, 17:13
Kick the cheaters out.
Steven Williamson
25th April 2024, 5:31
THIS!
Will may be my favorite driver, but ALL the drivers knew they were INTENTIONALLY cheating, as well as many team members. Ban them for the rest of the season, or there will be no point for me to watch this series which will be just as corrupt a clown show as F1.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
24th April 2024, 17:59
If push to pass isn’t allowed on restarts why would the drivers press the button? Either they knew the system was available (presumably informed by the team) or they didn’t know but pressed the button by mistake, I suppose.
Weird.
MichaelN
24th April 2024, 20:13
Yeah, that’s rather suspicious. The P2P system is supposed to be disabled until the car reaches the alternate start-finish line. Unless I’m misreading that, that’s the one just before the pit entry? So a long way away from the normal start-finish line. If the Penske drivers pressed it at the restart, that kinda rules out the ‘we’ll press it early so it’s applied the split-second it becomes available’ excuse.
Disappointing!
mike
25th April 2024, 1:10
They may just lay on it on the straight as normal operating procedure until the ecu gets the signal from race control and engages it.
Dex
24th April 2024, 18:57
This level of cheating deserves more than a single DQ I believe. Right? This isn’t some grey area or “liberal” interpretation of the rules, this is a fraud. A season-long ban for the team wouldn’t be too harsh, with permanent removal of individuals who are directly responsible. And if the drivers knew (they did use this aid, so I suppose they did?), they should be removed from the sport as well, if not for life then at least for a several seasons.
Otherwise what’s the message here? That cheating pays, because who knows how many times have they done it already, or planning to do. Who lies, he steals. Who steals once would still twice…
Yaru (@yaru)
24th April 2024, 20:33
Single DSQ feels pretty fair to me.
Dex
24th April 2024, 23:14
Then cheating pays off, since it’s more likely that you won’t get caught (they wouldn’t if they didn’t make a mistake). Single DQ is a standard punishment in F1 if your car doesn’t fulfill the requirements and you make a mistake (the car is too low, too heavy, engine modes aren’t right etc.). If you installed a software, with full intention of course, to mess with DRS and have it open whenever you want, even in this corrupt F1 you wouldn’t just lose points from that race. This compares to doping in other sports. I can’t see how anything less than a couple of years of banishment is fair.
Steven Williamson
25th April 2024, 5:36
Ban them for the entire season, DQ all results so far! No chance of this happening, so I’ll now have 30 minutes of free time back from their ‘generous’ race recaps posted each race.
Rihards Linde
24th April 2024, 19:16
Guys, Penske owns indycar. That’s why penalty can’t be big
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
24th April 2024, 20:30
I’ve been watching Indycar on and off the last few seasons and my understanding of push to pass is it works by increasing the fuel flow while active, resulting in more horsepower and higher fuel consumption. It’s almost impossible to believe it was accidentally being used since fuel is carefully calculated to make sure they pit at the right time and have enough spare to make it to the finish. Anyone watching Dixon’s win at Long Beach last week will understand how vital fuel saving is to his success as a driver, so for me it’s strongly suspicious they were well aware of what they were doing and actively cheating. This begs the question, were they doing at any other races and if so a larger punishment may be warranted.
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
24th April 2024, 20:36
Sidenote: I may have got the mechanics of push to pass incorrect after doing a tiny bit of research, but I do believe the result is more fuel consumption eitherway.
Mark (@blueruck)
24th April 2024, 21:59
Sorry Tim, that excuse seems a little thin. If you were testing a hybrid system you would want to test using the same rules as in a race. So no, I don’t buy this code was a left over. The code just happened to give a car a boost during the most critical time to pass in a race. Just a mistake, nothing to see here :)
Yaru (@yaru)
25th April 2024, 7:13
The push to pass on the upcoming hybrids work very differently than it does now I recall.
someone or something
24th April 2024, 22:22
What a convenient “error”. Just so happening to occur in a situation where it is the most beneficial, therefore forbidden by the rules, so the drivers would have no reason to be pressing the button if they believed their cars were legal, AND it also conceals the use of the boost in those situations where it must not be used (but not outside of these situations?).
This has to be the most featuresque bug in the history of programming.
Mark (@blueruck)
25th April 2024, 0:18
Oh No, it wasn’t a bug. It was a feature the forgot to turn off, because you program illegal features just to see what it is like. I believe they are still investigating how the drivers knew this feature was still turned on from pre-season testing.
This was clear cheating. I am surprised the penalty has been so minor. They took away illegal wins, that is expected, now what is the penalty for the actual cheating?
Yaru (@yaru)
25th April 2024, 7:16
Disqualification from a GP is a big punishment in Indycar. The last one that happened was many years ago and it’s for technical infractions (something about aeros installed not being legal) that were much more than more heavy than using push to pass for 2 seconds at an illegal time.
Don
24th April 2024, 23:13
Penske has been busted for cheating in numerous forms of racing over the years. It’s well documented. How on earth did they think they’d get away with it? The bigger question is if they knowingly used it (they had to know) what does that says about Newgarden, McLaughlin, Cendric? Did Roder know???