Newgarden thought IndyCar P2P rules had changed

Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin were disqualified from Race 1 of the season, in which they had finished first and third respectively, while fellow Team Penske driver Will Power lost 10 series points given he did not use push-to-pass on a start/restart.

McLaughlin claims he habitually used ‘the button’ for 1.9s during a restart, whereas his now former race-winning team-mate says he quite deliberately did so twice (three times, according to Team Penske President Tim Cindric), but only because he thought he was allowed to.

Newgarden addressed the furore for the first time in a special press conference at this weekend’s Grand Prix of Alabama.

“I think at this point, it’s really important to look at the facts of what happened, and the facts are extremely clear,” said the two-time IndyCar series champion.

“There’s no doubt 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,” he said.

“There’s really nothing else to it other than that those are the rules, and we did not adhere to them.

“For me, what’s really important about that 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 with that regard, I failed my team miserably. Complete failure from my side to get that right.

“You know, it’s my job as the leader of the #2 car to not make mistakes like that. You cannot make a mistake at this level in that situation.

“There’s no room for it. There’s no room for that type of mistake anywhere, certainly not at the top level of motorsports. And I don’t want to hide from that.

“It’s an embarrassing situation to have to go through, to see what’s transpired. It’s demoralising in a lot of ways. And there’s nothing that I can say that changes the fact of what happened. I mean, it’s pretty clear.

“That’s why I say I think the facts are most important right now. That’s what really matters.

“I also think the truth is important, and I think that there can be space for both of those things. So 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.

“I’ve worked my entire career to hold myself to an incredibly high standard. Clearly I’ve fallen very short of that in this respect.

“Once again, I can’t overstate, it’s a difficult thing to wrestle with. It’s a very embarrassing process to go through and I hope we can find a way forward after this.

“I mean, that’s really all you can do, is try and find a way forward after the fact.”

The two-time series champion drew attention to the fact that IndyCar had in fact changed the restart rules for the exhibition race held at The Thermal Club, between the St Petersburg event where the usual rule was broken and the Long Beach event where the breach was discovered.

He said he was not trying to hide his push-to-pass usage on the rationale that it would be seen on onboard cameras, dash lights, and telemetry – although IndyCar somehow failed to detect/recognise it until six weeks after the fact – but rather that he was “convinced” what he was doing had become legal.

“The tricky thing about this whole situation is, I didn’t know I did anything wrong until Monday after Long Beach,” said Newgarden. “It’s the first time I heard that I broke rules.

“I knew if getting to this part was going to be difficult for me, you guys can call me every name in the book, you can call me incompetent, call me an idiot, call me an arsehole, 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. So to answer your question, no, 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.

“Then I’ve had to wrestle with the fact that, how do you explain a situation to people? I know what happened. I know why it happened.

“I don’t think it’s very believable, even when I try to tell the story back. I don’t think any of us believe it will be believable to somebody. But it’s the truth.

“So, no, to answer your question, I didn’t know I did something wrong in St Pete. Maybe to elaborate on that, because there would be a follow-up: How didn’t you know you did something wrong?

“The key difference on the 2 car, which is important to understand, is that somehow, some way, we convinced ourselves that there was a rule change to restarts specifically with overtake usage.

“You say, How do you come up with this? It’s never happened before. The only place that this got introduced was with the Thermal exhibition race.

“It’s the only time, in my time in IndyCar, where we’ve actually had a legitimate legal change of the push-to-pass system, where it’s going to be operable at a time other than at the alt[ernate] start/finish line. It was going to be able to be used in qualifying, too. There was a lot of discussion about it.

“We genuinely believed and convinced ourselves that at St Pete, the rule was now you can use it immediately on restarts, you don’t have to wait ’til the alt start/finish line. It’s going to be available immediately.

“I even wanted the team to remind me of this so I didn’t forget. Whenever you get something new as a driver, it’s like, ‘Please remind me’. It’s easy for me to forget this stuff with everything going on inside the car. I specifically asked for that, too. We all knew about that.

“The craziest part of the story is, the software issue that no one knew about just perpetuated that belief even further. Then you go through St Pete, you go through Thermal, where it’s an actual change and everybody’s using it. Then you go to Long Beach, and it’s still in the car.

“The first time that any of us hear about this software issue or mistake is of warm-up.

“Even the crazier part of that is, even when you learn about the software issue that no one knew about, and it was fixed, I still believed the procedural difference on restarts was applied for Long Beach.

“I tried to do the exact same thing leading the race at Long Beach. I even pushed the button. I came over the radio, ‘Hey, guys, the overtake isn’t working correctly.’ I said it throughout the whole first lap because it wasn’t working right.

“I don’t know how or in your right mind you would do that. Did I try to come up with a conspiracy and then cover? It’s not.

“The truth is, somehow we got that mixed up, it got entangled with the mistake. It’s created some ridiculously unbelievable storyline now.

“The facts are that I used it illegally, I wasn’t allowed to. I can’t change that. Whatever I say going forward will not change those facts. It kills me that it doesn’t. I wish I could go back in time and somehow reverse all this, but I can’t.

“I thought about this a lot. I don’t want to put out a statement. Two things matter to me: accountability, and we have to be held accountable for any sort of mistake, whether you meant to do it or not; and the truth matters to me.

“Today, I want to be held accountable for what I did and the actions I took, and I want to tell people the truth. Those are the two things I wanted to achieve this morning. If I do that, I can leave here and feel good about anything going forward.”

Both McLaughlin and Power claimed they were unaware of the software issue at the time.

Newgarden backed the former’s explanation that he used push-to-pass out of “habit,” saying, “It’s not unusual for people to hit it before it’s activated.

“I mean, it’s very easy to do. Typically that happens right before the alt start/finish line.

“Maybe you hit it early, you get a denied press, you have to hit it again.

“That’s a typical case for it. It’s not unusual for someone to hit it accidentally or hit it out of habit.”

Notably, Power’s statement read, in part, “As per the rules, I did not utilize the P2P capabilities during any start or restart during the St. Petersburg race,” which suggests that the Queenslander, also a two-time IndyCar Series title winner, remained aware of the rules when Newgarden did not.

Team Penske claims the software illegality was a hangover from recent hybrid testing, although it was only a fortnight after the St Petersburg IndyCar race that one of its NASCAR drivers, Joey Logano, was caught wearing an illegal glove at Atlanta.

The McLaren IndyCar Team’s Pato O’Ward now the official St Petersburg race winner and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon moving into the series lead having won at Long Beach.