McLaughlin responds to disqualification 

Scott McLaughlin has defended Team Penske after it has been disqualified from the season opener at St Petersburg.

IndyCar announced both McLaughlin and teammate Josef Newgarden were excluded from the first race of the year due to a push-to-pass restart breach.

Newgarden dominated the race, while McLaughlin scored a strong third place.

However, Aussie Penske teammate Will Power was not disqualified and only received a 10-point penalty. All three entires received a $25,000 fine, while McLaren’s Pato O’Ward is now the winner.

After an extensive review of data from the race on the Streets of St. Petersburg, it was revealed Team Penske manipulated the overtake system and in breach of the following rules.

Rule 14.19.15. An indicator to enable Push to Pass will be sent via CAN communication from the timing and scoring beacon on board the Car to the team data logger. This signal must be passed on to the ECU unmodified and uninterrupted during all Road and Street Course Events.

Rule 14.19.16. Race Starts and any Race Restart that occurs before the lap prior to the white flag or prior to three minutes remaining in a timed Race Event will have the Push to Pass system disabled and will be enabled for a given Car once that Car reaches the alternate Start/Finish line.

“The integrity of the INDYCAR SERIES championship is critical to everything we do,” INDYCAR President Jay Frye said. 

“While the violation went undetected at St. Petersburg, INDYCAR discovered the manipulation during Sunday’s warmup in Long Beach and immediately addressed it ensuring all cars were compliant for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. 

“Beginning with this week’s race at Barber Motorsports Park, new technical inspection procedures will be in place to deter this violation.”

McLaughlin admitted he was “not aware” of the drama.

“First and foremost, I am proud to be a member of Team Penske,” he said.

“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 (1.9s) deployment of push to pass in a section of the track exit of turn 9 where it is typically utilised throughout the race.

“I hit the button out of habit, but I did not pass any cars nor dud I gain any time advantage.

“The data which IndyCar has, confirms all of this information.

“While I accept the penalty I want to be clear that I did not gain an advantage over my competitors.

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

Photo by Gavin Baker / LAT Images

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