‘I’M NOT A LIAR’ – FORMER F1 HOPEFUL FIGHTS BACK TEARS AFTER INDYCAR DISQUALIFICATION

Former F1 hopeful Josef Newgarden has fought back tears in an explanation for his illegal use of IndyCar’s push-to-pass system in a controversy that has rocked US motorsport.

Newgarden claimed victory in the opening round of the 2024 IndyCar season in St Petersburg last month, but on Wednesday was retrospectively disqualified – along with Penske team-mate Scott McLaughlin – for using push-to-pass on restarts.

Former F1 hopeful in emotional response after IndyCar DSQ

With push-to-pass – which increases the power of the engine by roughly 60 horsepower – banned on restarts, Penske have pointed to a mistake in leaving the software in the car from pre-season testing.

The third Penske car of Will Power was also found to be carrying the software, but the Australian driver escaped with a 10-point penalty as he did not activate the push-to-pass system at a restart.

While McLaughlin and Power published separate statements online in response to their punishments, two-time IndyCar champion Newgarden had remained silent on the issue before appearing at a press conference ahead of this weekend’s race at Barber Motorsports Park, where he cut an emotional figure.

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He said: “Today I want to be held accountable for what I did and the actions I took and I want to tell people the truth.

“Those are the two things I wanted to achieve this morning. If I do that, I can leave here and feel good about anything going forward.”

“If there’s anything I wanted to come and 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.

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

Newgarden acknowledged that he had let his Penske team down, admitting that he knew “exactly” when he activated the push-to-pass system.

He added: “There’s only one person sitting in the car. It’s just me, so that responsibility and the use of the push-to-pass in the correct manner falls completely on me.

“In that regard, I failed my team miserably.”

“It’s nothing [I’m] trying to hide from. I know exactly when I pushed the button. I feel it every time. It’s a very obvious thing.”

Newgarden insisted he was not a liar, admitting he had no idea that he had stepped over the line before he was disqualified this week.

And he claimed that his team had been left confused by a relaxation to the push-to-pass rules for the recent $1million Challenge exhibition race at the Thermal club track, where P2P was allowed in qualifying for the first time in IndyCar history,

This, Newgarden claimed, led his team to believe that the overtaking aid would be available more freely on a general basis in 2024.

He explained: “You guys can call me every name in the book – you can call me incompetent, call me an idiot, call me an a**hole, 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.

“So no, 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.

“The key difference on the [number] 2 car, which is important to understand, is that somehow we convinced ourselves that there was a rule change to restarts specifically with overtake usage.

“You say: ‘How do you come up with this? It’s never happened before.’ The only place that this got introduced was with the Thermal exhibition race.

“It’s the only time, in my time in IndyCar, where we’ve actually had a legitimate legal change of the push-to-pass system, where it’s going to be operable at a time other than at the alt start/finish line.

“It was going to be able to be used in qualifying, too. There was a lot of discussion about it.

“We genuinely believed – and convinced ourselves – that at St Pete the rule was now you can use it immediately on restarts, you don’t have to wait til the alt start/finish line. It’s going to be available immediately.”

Newgarden spent a full season competing in F1 feeder series GP3 (now F3) in 2010, scoring just eight points as Esteban Gutierrez, the future Sauber and Haas driver, claimed the title.

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