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Penske had the right to contest the penalties, which also include a 10-point sanction for its #12 entry of Will Power, but has accepted the punishment, per a statement attributed to team President Tim Cindric.
According to Cindric, though, it was an error which arose from recent hybrid testing.
“Unfortunately, the push-to-pass software was not removed as it should have been following recently completed hybrid testing in the Team Penske Indy cars,” he 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 No. 2 car, driven by Josef Newgarden, and the No. 3 car, driven by Scott McLaughlin, both deployed push-to-pass on a restart, which violated IndyCar rules.
“Team Penske accepts the penalties applied by IndyCar.”
Power’s penalty is lesser because he did not deploy P2P on a restart, meaning he inherits second place in the official race classification, behind McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, and only loses two points in net terms.
Newgarden, however, plummets from the series lead to 11th, with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon now top of the points table following his victory at Long Beach, the event where the possibility of breaches was discovered by officials.
Scott McLaughlin is last of the 29 drivers on the series points table, having suffered gearbox issues at Long Beach.
