McLaughlin moves to protect reputation over St Petersburg disqualification

Car #3 finished third but both he and race-winning Team Penske team-mate Josef Newgarden have been stripped of their results over the breach.

Penske accepts the penalty but claims the breach was an error arising from recent hybrid testing, despite IndyCar referring to it as a ‘manipulation’ of the system.

McLaughlin has now issued his own statement, claiming he was unaware of the issue, pressed ‘the button’ out of habit, and gained no advantage.

He also moved to stress that, “IndyCar’s competition is the best in the world and I would take no pleasure in achieving success in any way other than honestly.”

All three Penske cars were penalised, although Will Power only lost 10 points given, unlike his team-mates, he did not deploy push-to-pass on the restart lap.

See below for full statement from McLaughlin.

Full statement

First and foremost, I am proud to be a member of Team Penske. I fully stand with every one of my teammates. Simply put, a mistake was made. I have the highest level of integrity and it is important to protect both my own reputation and that of the team.

I was not aware of the situation with the software. In this instance, I used a single, very brief (1.9 seconds) deployment of push to pass in a section of the track exit of turn 9 where it is typically utilized throughout the race. I hit the button out of habit, but I did not pass any cars nor did I gain any time advantage. The data, which INDYCAR has, confirms all of this information. While accept the penalty, I want to be clear that I did not gain an advantage over my competitors.

IndyCar’s competition is the best in the world and I would take no pleasure in achieving success in any way other than honestly.

We will all press forward from here and focus on the task at hand this weekend in Barber.