Team Penske will be without multiple senior members of its IndyCar program to start the month of May, the team announced Tuesday, as fallout from its push-to-pass scandal uncovered nearly two weeks ago continues.

Josef Newgarden and Will Power will be without their respective strategists this month at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as team president Tim Cindric (Newgarden) and the program's managing director Ron Ruzewski (Power) headline a list of people who received multi-event suspensions. Newgarden's race engineer Luke Mason, as well as Power's data engineer, Robbie Atkinson, have also been suspended, according to the team, following an internal review of the matter.

"After a full and comprehensive analysis of the information, Team Penske has determined that there were significant failures in our processes and internal communications," the team's statement read.

The news was first reported by Trackside Online.

"I recognize the magnitude of what occurred and the impact it continues to have on the sport to which I've dedicated so many decades," Roger Penske said in the release. "Everyone at Team Penske, along with our fans and business partners, should know that I apologize for the errors that were made and I deeply regret them."

“For Ron and I as leaders of this team, it’s not about what we did, it’s about what we didn’t do," Cindric said in a statement. "It is our responsibility to provide the team and all our drivers with the right processes to ensure something like this can’t happen. For that, I apologize to Roger, our team and everyone that supports us. Our number one job is to protect and enhance the reputation of our brand and that of those that support us. In that regard, as the overall leader, I failed, and I must raise my hand and be accountable with the others. This is a team, and in my position, it’s the right thing to do.”

The internal punishments stem from a team-wide infraction involving improper coding in the setup software of all three of Team Penske's IndyCar entries at the St. Pete season-opener. That coding gave Newgarden, Power and Scott McLaughlin the capability to use push-to-pass boost during starts and restarts – something that has long been banned by the series. The team claims coding was added to the software last August at the outset of intensive manufacturer hybrid testing and then accidentally copy-and-pasted into the 2024 regular-season setups. Newgarden used overtake three times (for 9 seconds total) when his competitors only had typical horsepower available during his resounding win from pole.

'The god-honest truth': Cindric explains how IndyCar team ran afoul of rules -- by accident

McLaughlin hit the button once for 1.9 seconds, and Power was found not to have used it. Newgarden and McLaughlin, who finished third in the season opener, were disqualified. Power was docked 10 points. The transgression, shrouded by multiple explanations between team personnel and their drivers, was wholly accidental, Cindric told IndyStar a day after IndyCar announced the penalties.

"The difficulty with this whole situation is people expect we were trying to circumvent the rules with the software, and we honestly weren't," Cindric told IndyStar April 25. "I know it sounds like we're making this up, but it's the truth.

"If we were trying to gain an advantage, why would we do it when the push-to-pass and RPM data is available for everyone to see, and why would we think no one would notice? These are things you can't hide, so to say we purposefully did this to gain an advantage, I don't know how you can come to that conclusion, unless that's what you want to believe."

'You think we're all stupid?': IndyCar reacts to Team Penske's rules violations

In an emotional 25-minute press conference to kick off the race weekend at Barber Motorsports Park, Newgarden claimed that personnel on his No. 2 car – seeming to implicate not only him, but possibly Cindric as well, among others – misunderstood rules around push-to-pass for the 2024 season. The 2023 Indy 500 winner stated they understood that overtake had been made legal on starts and restarts schedule-wide, rather than just for the $1 Million Challenge exhibition March 24 at The Thermal Club. And so when he hit the overtake button those three times at St. Pete, and it worked, he thought nothing of it.

For good measure, Newgarden told reporters, he even asked for his team to remind him of the perceived rule change, further implicating his strategist. "Whenever you get something new as a driver, it's like, 'Please remind me,'" Newgarden said of his message to his team members. "It's easy for me to forget this stuff with everything going on inside the car. I specifically asked for that, too. We all knew about that."

How one of the most meticulous drivers in the sport, driving for one of the most successful team officials the series has seen – for a team owned by Roger Penske, no less – convinced themselves a rule change had happened when it hadn't, when Power and McLauglin both told reporters that no such change was ever discussed team-wide, is unclear. Newgarden admitted the reasoning lacked believability and by no means should be seen as a worthwhile excuse.

"I know what happened. I know why it happened. I don't think it's very believable, even when I try to tell the story back. I don't think any of us believe it will be believable to somebody, but it's the truth," he said. "The facts are that I used it illegally, and I can't change that. Whatever I say going forward will not change those facts.

"It kills me that it doesn't. I wish I could go back in time and somehow reverse all this, but I can't."

'I don't think it's very believable': Newgarden responds to cheating allegations

Entangled in this – along with McLaughlin's claim that he didn't notice the extra 50 horsepower boost his No. 3 Chevy received when he unknowingly hit the overtake button – is the fact that no engineers, whether they be on Team Penske or Chevy/Ilmor's side, noticed any abnormality in either Newgarden or McLaughlin's data during traditional internal post-race reviews – which handfuls of rival drivers and team officials told IndyStar should've been a simple catch. IndyCar's on-track officiating crew, spearheaded by series president Jay Frye, also admitted to not catching the coding advantage in the six weeks between the first and second points-paying races of the year. Race control noticed Team Penske drivers using push-to-pass during the Sunday morning warmup at Long Beach when the capability had not been turned on for the field.

In a media scrum at Barber, both Frye and Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles told reporters that the series had combed back through all Team Penske's 2023 data and found no evidence of prolonged race infractions outside St. Pete this year. They deemed their investigation complete and the penalties set.

The bulk of the paddock believes something purposeful, or at minimum unethical, had gone on inside Team Penske. Whether Penske himself, who also owns the series and has, since his acquisition, pledged to have safeguards between he and the day-to-day competition side of his team, actively knew of the alleged cheating, paddock team leaders remain split. But few, if any, believe the story plainly to be one of accidents, oversights and misunderstandings.

'I don’t really believe the story': Ex-Penske employee on team's push to pass violations

"Roger's got to clean his own house up," Dale Coyne told IndyStar at Barber after Penske held a private meeting with representatives of the nine other teams to apologize and take responsibility for his team's gaffes.

In the wake of speculation as to whether its own engineers either actively and purposefully gave Team Penske drivers an advantage to start this season, or whether they uncovered it post-St. Pete and remained silent, General Motors president Mark Reuss announced last week that the company had hired a third-party law firm to "conduct a thorough review" of Chevy's culpability. They found no evidence of wrongdoing, Reuss said in a statement Friday.

"We respect the decision and actions of IndyCar, as well as Team Penske's commitment to improve their processes and controls," Reuss said in the release, noting that no Chevy employees "had any knowledge of or involvement in the matter."

"Chevy looks forward to engaging with IndyCar and our partner race teams to assist in any enhancements that further support the integrity of IndyCar competition."

‘Roger’s got to clean his house up’: IndyCar owners meet with Penske over scandal

Even without admission of purposeful wrongdoing, Tuesday's announcement of severe internal punishments at Team Penske marks a swift about-face after multiple team members talked of banding together and closing ranks in the wake of McLaughlin's win and Power's runner-up finish at Barber, where Ruzewski told IndyStar he and others couldn't entirely block out external chatter from their rivals implying Team Penske had engaged in purposeful cheating. Nonetheless, he said, there were no internal "hidden agendas" or "lies" that had to be covered up. "Haters are always going to hate and always try to find something to bring you down, but one thing we won't do is let this tear us down," Ruzewski told IndyStar at Barber.

Hours after the scandal came to light, Cindric told IndyStar he was confident that no Team Penske members had knowingly skirted the rules, noting that if he or Penske had, "you would've known who it was by now."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Multiple Team Penske IndyCar officials suspended for Indy 500 after cheating scandal