04/26/24 11:58:00
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04/26 11:56 CDT Star driver Josef Newgarden fights back tears, accepts blame
for breaking rules in IndyCar scandal
Star driver Josef Newgarden fights back tears, accepts blame for breaking rules
in IndyCar scandal
By JOHN ZENOR
AP Sports Writer
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) --- Reigning Indianapolis 500 champion Josef Newgarden
blinked back tears Friday as he accepted blame for manipulating the
push-to-pass system in his season-opening IndyCar win that has since been
stripped, calling it an embarrassment. The two-time series champion insisted he
is "not a liar" and didn't intentionally break the rules.
Newgarden gave an emotional 25-minute news conference at Barber Motorsports
Park in his first public comments since IndyCar punished him Wednesday by
taking away his March 10 victory at St. Petersburg, Florida.
"I want to deeply apologize to our fans, our partners, my teammates, the
competitors that I race against," Newgarden said. "Anybody that's in our
community. I've worked my entire career to hold myself to a very high standard
and clearly I've fallen very short of that in this respect. It's a difficult
thing to wrestle with. It's a very embarrassing thing to go through."
Newgarden said the disqualification and stripping of the win was "absolutely"
the right decision by the open-wheel series whose owner, Roger Penske, also
runs Newgarden's team and is one of the giants in motorsports. The decision has
thrown IndyCar into turmoil as it prepares for next month's showcase
Indianapolis 500.
"It's crushing. I'm going to look back on it, too, and say I don't want that
win on my books, either," Newgarden said, his voice wavering. "I don't want it.
I'm glad they're taking it away. If it was tainted, I don't want to be near it.
Unfortunately it is. I can't reverse that in time. It's good what's happened."
Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin, who finished third, also was
disqualified while fourth-place finisher Will Power was docked 10 points though
he wasn't accused of any wrongdoing. The Penske drivers were fined $25,000
because the manipulated systems were on all three cars.
Team Penske has maintained that the push-to-pass system on its three Chevrolets
was used in a test session for upcoming hybrid engines and then mistakenly not
replaced before the start of the season. It remained on the cars for three
races and onboard videos clearly show Newgarden illegally using push-to-pass to
gain position on at least one restart at St. Petersburg.
IndyCar prohibits the use of the system on starts and restarts and the button
isn't even supposed to work on those occasions. The issue was discovered Sunday
in California when a glitch knocked push-to-pass out on all cars except the
three Penske entries. IndyCar examined the units, found them to be illegal, and
forced the team to correct the systems before the Long Beach race.
Penske, Newgarden said, "did not take it well. I was interrogated at first."
"I've not met somebody with higher integrity than that man, and I mean that,"
Newgarden said, adding that he met with IndyCar President Jay Frye on Thursday
and could tell that Frye also found Newgarden's explanation implausible.
Team Penske President Tim Cindric has denied any intentional wrongdoing.
"To say we purposefully did this to get an advantage, I don't know how you come
to that conclusion, unless it's what you want to believe," Cindric told The
Indianapolis Star.
Newgarden, featured on the season opener of "100 Days to Indy" airing Friday
night, said he didn't know he had broken the rules until Monday, the day after
the manipulated systems were discovered during morning warmup at Long Beach. He
choked back tears several times when addressing the incident, including when
asked what he has to do to regain the trust of his competitors, some of whom
have been outspoken in their skepticism that it was unintentional.
"I don't know how you do that," Newgarden said. "I don't know that anybody's
going to believe what I've told you here today. And that's OK. It's a crazy set
of circumstances to try to wrestle with. It's certainly not going to come with
words. I'll just try and earn it through action."
Andretti Global driver Colton Herta, who moved up to third at St. Pete with the
disqualifications, said he isn't buying that Newgarden didn't realize he was
breaking the rules.
"That's wrong. If he thought that, why didn't he push it at the start?" Herta
said. "He didn't push it at the start. He pushed it on the restarts. You would
think when everybody is stacked up the most, you would push it. So that's a
lie."
Pato O'Ward, who wound up getting the win at St. Pete, added that Newgarden
isn't alone when it comes to the violations.
"I can guarantee you, it's not just Josef in this," O'Ward said. "Obviously
what he did was wrong, but I truly feel like him taking the fall for something
that he needs a team of people to help with -- he can't do it alone -- I think
it's a bit unfair to him. I think he's absolutely taken the whole fall.
"And he wouldn't have been able to do that without the team behind him. That's
just a fact.
___
AP IndyCar: https://apnews.com/hub/indycar
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