Pato O’Ward was declared the official winner of the St. Petersburg Grand Prix after an announcement from the NTT IndyCar Series. The series found that all three Team Penske entries, driven by Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin, and Will Power, violated the Push to Pass rules during the race. As a result, Newgarden and McLaughlin were disqualified, and Power was penalized with a loss of 10 points in the championship. The team will also forfeit their prize money and pay a $25,000 fine.
The violation occurred when Newgarden and McLaughlin used the Push to Pass boost system on board during restarts, which is against the rules. IndyCar officials discovered irregularities in the Team Penske system during practice at Long Beach, and further investigation revealed that the system had been used in an unauthorized configuration at St. Petersburg. Power, however, did not use the system during restart periods and was only penalized with a loss of 10 points.
IndyCar President Jay Frye emphasized the importance of maintaining the integrity of the championship and stated that new technical inspection procedures will be implemented to prevent such violations in the future. The disqualification had a significant impact on the overall points standings, with Newgarden dropping from first to 11th and McLaughlin dropping from 10th to 29th. O’Ward, on the other hand, moved up from sixth to fourth in the standings and was retroactively awarded his fifth career victory in the IndyCar series. Scott Dixon is the new points leader heading into the next race at Barber Motorsports Park.
Team Penske responded to the penalty announcement, acknowledging that a configuration used in their hybrid testing was accidentally left active for the race. The team expressed acceptance of the penalties imposed by IndyCar and explained that the push-to-pass software allowed its deployment during restarts, which was not allowed. They apologized for the mistake and assured that measures will be taken to prevent such incidents in the future.
