Josef Newgarden - Thought rules changed prior to DQ decision - ESPN

Reigning Indianapolis 500 champion Josef Newgarden blinked back tears Friday as he accepted blame for using a manipulated push-to-pass system in his season-opening IndyCar win that has since been stripped, calling it an embarrassment.

Newgarden insisted he is «not a liar» and said he didn't know he had broken the rules until Monday, the day after the manipulated systems were discovered during morning warmups at Long Beach.

The two-time series champion choked back tears several times, 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 his and his team's actions were 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.»

Newgarden's 25-minute news conference at Barber Motorsports Park marked 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. The decision has thrown IndyCar into