Newgarden admits he “failed my team miserably” over disqualification

Josef Newgarden has apologised to IndyCar, its fans and his team after he was disqualified from the opening round in St. Petersburg.

The Penske driver was stripped of victory in the season-opening round by IndyCar two days ago, six weeks after the event was held.

IndyCar officials discovered prior to last weekend’s race at Long Beach that the three Penske cars of Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Will Power had a software setting that could enable them to use the Push-to-Pass boost system during race starts and restarts, when it is not permitted under the regulations.

Newgarden and McLaughlin were both disqualified from the race results as they were found to have gained a competitive advantage from using Push-to-Pass outside of permitted times. As Power was deemed not to have used his Push-to-Pass illegally, he was allowed to retain his classification – promoted to second as a result of his team mates’ disqualifications – but was docked 10 championship points.

Speaking to media for the first time since the announcement, an emotional Newgarden told media including RaceFans he took full responsibility for the rules breach.

“I think at this point it’s really important to look at the facts of what happened,” Newgarden said. “And the facts are extremely clear.

“There’s no doubt that 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. There’s really nothing else to it other than that. Those are the rules and we did not adhere to them.

“What’s really important about that too, 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 in that regard, I failed my team miserably – a complete failure from my side, to get that right.”

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Newgarden described the situation as “embarrassing” and apologised for failing to adhere to the rules.

“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,” he said.

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

He claimed he had used Push-to-Pass in the mistaken belief that this was in accordance with the regulations. He revealed he also tried to use it during last weekend’s the race at Long Beach, by which point the car’s software had already been modified to prevent it being used outside of the permitted times. He insisted that it was an honest mistake, rather than a deliberate attempt to subvert the rules and gain an unfair advantage.

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

“You can call me every name in the book. You can call me incompetent, call me an idiot, call me an asshole, 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.

“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. And then I’ve had to wrestle with the fact that ‘how do you explain this situation to people’? I know what happened, I know why it happened, and I don’t think it’s very believable, even when I try and tell the story back. I don’t think any of us believe it’ll be believable to somebody. But it’s the truth.”

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Following IndyCar’s announcement of the disqualification, both Power and McLaughlin made public statements about the controversy, with McLaughlin insisting he had only used Push-to-Pass when he was not permitted once “out of habit”. However, Newgarden insisted he wanted to wait for an opportunity to speak to the media first to address the incident.

“I didn’t want to put out a statement or try and do an interview over the phone or something like that,” he said. “I just thought it was really important to get in front of everybody and have an opportunity to chat.”

Newgarden said he had spoken to team and IndyCar owner Roger Penske about the incident who was very unhappy with the situation.

“I have spoken to him,” said Newgarden. “I’ve spoken to him once and he did not take it well whatsoever, as you could imagine. I was interrogated at first.

“I don’t want to speak on his behalf, but I’ve not met somebody with higher integrity than that man. And I mean that. It wasn’t taken well.”

As a result of his disqualification, Newgarden has lost the lead of the IndyCar championship heading into this weekend’s race at Barber Motorsports Park. He has fallen to 11th in the standings as a result of losing his 50 points from St. Petersburg, with Scott Dixon now assuming the points lead ahead of Colton Herta.

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