The Button That Got a Race Winner Disqualified: IndyCar's Push to Pass, Explained
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Tech Breakdown - where we take one confusing part of the sport and make it make sense. No engineering degree required.
The Short Version
Push to pass is a button on the steering wheel that gives an IndyCar driver a short burst of extra horsepower to attack or defend a position. It sounds simple, but the rules about exactly when a driver is allowed to press it have caused two separate scandals in three seasons, including a race winner getting stripped of his trophy. IndyCar just rewrote those rules again in May 2026 after a software glitch let almost half the field use it illegally at once. Here is what the button actually does, and why IndyCar keeps changing when you are allowed to touch it.
What Push to Pass Actually Does
Think of an IndyCar's turbocharger as a fan that force-feeds air into the engine. More air in means a bigger, harder explosion in the cylinder, which means more power. Push to pass works by telling the engine's computer to briefly crank the turbo's boost pressure up higher than normal, on a road or street course from roughly 1,500 millibars up to about 1,650. That jump hands the driver an extra 50 to 60 horsepower for a few seconds, on top of what the engine already makes.
The driver activates it by pressing and holding a button on the steering wheel. There is no guessing involved. A light or readout tells the driver it is armed, they mash the button, the car surges, and they either complete the pass or hold off the car behind. Then it is gone until they press it again.
You Only Get So Much of It
Push to pass is not unlimited. Every driver starts a road or street course race with a bank of about 200 seconds of total boost time. Every press drains that bank, and once it is empty, the button does nothing no matter how hard they hit it. That makes push to pass a strategy call as much as a passing tool. Burn it early attacking for position and there is nothing left to defend with late. Hoard it and a driver might get passed before ever spending it.
Push to pass only exists on road and street courses, the tracks with tight corners and heavy braking zones where a horsepower boost actually creates a passing chance. On the big oval tracks, the button is disabled entirely. Ovals get their power boost from a different system, the hybrid unit IndyCar added to the cars in 2024.
The Trap: When Are You Actually Allowed to Press It
Here is where push to pass turns into a rulebook headache. IndyCar has always shut the system off during specific moments, mainly the start of the race and the restarts after a caution, so a driver in the lead cannot just floor an extra 60 horsepower and drive away before anyone can react. The system is supposed to flip back on automatically once the field crosses a mark on the track called the alternate start-finish line.
That "supposed to" is the problem. In 2024 at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Team Penske's cars still had old test software that never switched push to pass off for a restart. Race winner Josef Newgarden and teammate Scott McLaughlin used it during that restart and were both disqualified, an almost unheard-of penalty for a championship-caliber team. Teammate Will Power got docked 10 points for a related issue. It happened because of a settings file, not cheating in the traditional sense.
It happened again this year. At the 2026 Grand Prix of Long Beach, a software failure on IndyCar's own side left push to pass turned on during a restart instead of off. Twelve of 25 drivers took the free horsepower, including race winner Alex Palou, who pressed the button three times for a combined 15 seconds. IndyCar ruled every car legal since the failure was the sanctioning body's fault, not the teams'. But it made the rule look broken for the second time in three seasons.
NEWS: Push to Pass will be expanded to full-time use on all INDYCAR road and street courses, beginning this weekend at the @IMS road course.
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) May 5, 2026
The driver-controlled system will now be available at all times once the car crosses the alternate start-finish line after the green flag. pic.twitter.com/PJBtBfd9eM
The 2026 Fix: Leave It On
IndyCar's answer, announced May 5, 2026, was to stop trying to flip the switch off and on around every restart. Now push to pass is simply off for the opening lap of the race and switches on for good the moment the field passes the alternate start-finish line, restarts included, and stays armed the rest of the way. No more toggling the system every time a caution flag flies, and no more software trying to time a shutoff perfectly across 25 cars at once.
The tradeoff is that IndyCar also shifted the blame. Drivers and teams are now responsible for not using push to pass during that one opening-lap window, even if a future software hiccup leaves it armed early by mistake. Alex Palou said the quiet part out loud, asking why he should be penalized if IndyCar messes up the software again and he presses the button. Graham Rahal has said flatly he is not a fan, expecting drivers to just keep a finger on the button through every restart now that it is legal the whole way.
What to Watch For at the Track
Watch what happens right after a restart. Before this year, cars often ran nose to tail for a lap while push to pass sat locked out. Now expect passing to start immediately, since the button is live from the moment the field takes the green. Watch too for a driver who runs out of push to pass late in a race. If a car that was making moves all afternoon suddenly cannot complete a pass in the closing laps, the answer is likely sitting right there in that 200-second bank: empty.
The Bottom Line
Push to pass is a simple idea, a button that buys 60 extra horsepower for a few seconds, wrapped in a rulebook complicated enough that it has disqualified a race winner once and nearly caused a second scandal two years later. The 2026 fix trades a cleaner on-off switch for putting more responsibility on the drivers themselves. Either way, the next time you see an IndyCar suddenly pull alongside another one out of a corner, you will know exactly what just happened under the hood.
Every IndyCar fan needs to know the rules better than the guy next to them on the couch. Gear up for the next green flag with our IndyCar collection. New tech breakdowns drop every week - bookmark the blog and never get lost in the jargon again.
