The season opening round the 2024 IndyCar season, the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, took place a month and a half ago on March 10th. When IndyCar officials announced the disqualification of the Team Penske drivers Joseph Newgarden And Scott McLaughlin, as well as a 10-point penalty to Will Power on Wednesday morning, it was something of a shock. Apparently, Team Penske racers were found to have violated the “push to pass” rules. During a warm-up session it was discovered that the cars in question were unregulated The Long Beach Grand Prix last weekendat what point the data from St. Pete was checked.
Below are the rules Team Penske broke:
- Rule 14.19.15. An indicator to activate “Push to Pass” is sent via CAN communication from the timing and scoring transmitter on board the vehicle to the team data logger. This signal must be passed on unchanged and uninterrupted to the control unit during all street and road course events.
- Rule 14.19.16. For race starts and any race restart that occurs before the white flag lap or before three minutes remaining of a timed race event, the push-to-pass system will be deactivated and activated for a specific car as soon as that car reaches the alternate start/finish line .
According to IndyCar, Team Penske manipulated the overtaking system so that Newgarden, McLaughlin and Power could use the push-to-pass button on race starts and restarts where it is prohibited. From the data, it was determined that Newgarden and McLaughlin gained a competitive advantage from the P2P cheat, but Power did not, resulting in the penalties being doled out as they were.
“The integrity of the INDYCAR SERIES championship is critical to everything we do,” said INDYCAR President Jay Frye. “While the violation went undetected in St. Petersburg, INDYCAR discovered the tampering during Sunday’s warm-up at Long Beach and responded immediately to ensure all cars were in compliance for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Starting with this week’s race at Barber Motorsports Park, new technical inspection procedures will be implemented to prevent this violation.”
Due to Newgarden’s disqualification from race leadership, Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward inherits the race victory. Newgarden will also lose all points associated with the race win, knocking him out of the championship lead and allowing this weekend’s winner Scott Dixon to top the points pile.
It’s not very common for a driver to have a race win taken away from him, and it’s particularly unusual this late in the season. When it comes to punishing a team, especially one owned by the same man who owns the series, Roger Penske, it is extremely important that the series remains impartial and transparent throughout this process. Kudos to Frye and his team for recognizing the situation and making the difficult decisions.