Long Beach Push to Pass Questions are Pushed to the Past with Official Rule Change
INDIANAPOLIS – Following the use of Push to Pass on a restart by 12 drivers on the grid at the 2026 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, the rule regarding the use of the extra 60 horsepower has been altered.
The previous rule, Rule 14.19.16, read as:
“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.”
What is not discussed in the rule is the legality of pushing the button when IndyCar has failed to disable the system.
This has become a hot topic of conversation around the paddock as fans question whether or not those who pushed the button deserve to be punished.
Alex Palou, Four-Time IndyCar Series Champion, 2025 Indianapolis 5oo winner, and winner of the 2026 Long Beach Grand Prix, was one of the 12 drivers to press the Push to Pass button on the restart.
“[The rule] was very specific…” said Palou on the matter, “I knew [Push to Pass] was not enabled [on the restart], end of story. The issue is that you’re putting it on us when sometimes it’s a reaction. You’re going to [potentially] disqualify someone for using it when it could be a reaction of pressing a button.”
One driver that did not press the button was Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward. At Thursday’s press conference before the Sonsio Grand Prix, O’Ward stated that he had been alerted to the fact that it would work, but didn’t press the button, saying, “You know the rule.”
O’Ward went on to say in the post-qualification press conference that those who used the button were operating in the gray area.
The truth is, there was no gray area. The rule in question, Rule 14.19.16, was not written to enforce a penalty on a mistake made by the governing body.
In the same post-qualification press conference, O’Ward brought up the p2p incident that took place at St. Petersburg in 2024, saying it was “the same action that Josef [Newgarden] got crucified for.”
In this case, the rule that was broken to allow for the use of p2p on the restart was 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.”
While the action of Palou and the 11 others may have been the same action Newgarden got crucified for, pressing the Push to Pass button, the underlying circumstances were entirely different.
One was a mistake by race control, and the other was an intentional change made by a team.
Ultimately, Rule 14.19.16 has been altered to enable Push to Pass on restarts.
Rule 14.19.16 now reads:
“Push to Pass utilization is prohibited during the following race procedures, On-track conditions and locations: Race Starts, from the engine start command to commence the parade and pace laps, until the Car crosses the alternate Start/Finish line for the first time after taking the initial green flag; Lapped-Car command blue, when IndyCar orders a command blue to a Lapped-Car per Rule 7.2.5.1.”
The ending to this story is that nothing that happened on the restart in Long Beach was against the previous rule. No cars received a position change due to the software error, except for the No. 66 and No. 14, who both used near equal amounts of Push to Pass. There will be no penalties and no change in the official results, as IndyCar Officiating has deemed that the use of the button was legal.