Disqualified, Josef Newgarden loses his St. Petersburg victory!

THEIndyCar announced this Wednesday the disqualification of the two Team Penske drivers, as well as a ten championship point penalty for their teammate Will Power, due to manipulation of the push-to-pass system.

A change in the mechanism's software, which allows drivers to deploy more power during a 200-second period during each race on road and street circuits, thus allowed Penske drivers to use push-to-pass on starts and race restarts, which is prohibited by the regulations.

This software change was discovered during this weekend's Warm-Up event, which took place on the streets of Long Beach. Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin both used push-to-pass on a restart in Florida, which led to their disqualification. The less severe penalty attributed to Will Power is simply explained by the fact that he did not use the system on race restarts.

A fault linked to hybrid testing

Pato O'Ward therefore won the race, ahead of Will Power and Colton Herta (Andretti). The Mexican thus signs the first victory for the team McLaren from Iowa Speedway in 2022. Scott Dixon (Ganassi), winner this Sunday at Long Beach, takes control of the championship, ahead of Herta and Alex Palou (Ganassi).

Tim Cindric, president of Team Penske, explained the penalty imposed on his drivers, indicating that the software had not been modified for cheating purposes: “Unfortunately, the push-to-pass software was not removed as it should have been after a test session organized with the hybrid single-seaters. This software allowed push-to-pass to be used during starts and restarts in St. Petersburg, which is not permitted.

The No. 2 car of Josef Newgarden, and the No. 3 of Scott McLaughlin, both deployed push-to-pass on a restart, which goes against IndyCar rules. Team Penske accepts penalties imposed by IndyCar. »

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