IndyCar has another push to pass incident during Long Beach race; what we know

IndyCar had another push to pass software failure during Sunday's Grand Prix of Long Beach, the series announced.

During the Lap 61 restart, push to pass -- which gives drivers an additional 50 horsepower for short bursts -- was available to all drivers when it should have been disabled. Here is 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."

According to a news release, IndyCar is responsible for making sure the softball is running properly and there were no driver or team infractions.

Twelve cars used push to pass prior to the alternate start-finish line, according to the news release. IndyCar further said only Marcus Armstrong benefitted from the error, passing Santino Ferrucci, but the two drivers used nearly equal amounts of push to pass and IndyCar Officiating will not make any changes to the official results.

"IndyCar and IndyCar Officiating will continue to evaluate the system failure and will implement additional protective measures to keep it from happening again at future events," the release said.

In April 2024, Josef Newgarden was stripped of his season-opening win at St. Petersburg for using push to pass when it wasn't allowed three times; it has never been allowed on starts or re-starts by the series during Newgarden's career. The Team Penske driver had access to it due to an illegal line of code in the software that had been added during testing of IndyCar's hybrid system.

“I know what happened. I know why it happened, and 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,” Newgarden said in explaining that he thought the series had made Push to Pass legal on starts and restarts. “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."

Newgarden was IndyCar's first disqualified race-winner since 1995. His racing for Team Penske, with owner Roger Penske also owning the series, shined and even brighter light on the incident. Scott McLaughlin was also disqualified for using push to pass and Will Power was docked 10 points -- he had access to push to pass but did not use it -- and the team was fined $75,000.

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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar has another push to pass incident during Long Beach race; what we know