What is INDYCAR's push-to-pass rule and explaining 2024 controversy

Late in the race on Sunday in INDYCAR's Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on FOX, a driver might have that little extra boost needed to make a pass.

It’s all in the rules.

The cars in the INDYCAR SERIES come with two ways to get a boost.

The first is the push-to-pass system, a system controlled by the ECU that allows for the engine power to be increased for a period of time. It is activated when the driver presses and holds a button on the steering wheel.

For St. Pete, the maximum time a driver can hold the button is 15 seconds with a maximum of 150 seconds during the event. Those will also be the maximums for races at Detroit, Laguna Seca and Thermal.

The maximum for the other seven road courses — Long Beach, Barber, Indianapolis, Road America, Mid-Ohio, Toronto and Portland — will be 20 seconds per push and 200 seconds total.

The system is only used on road and street courses, and each road course has a maximum time per push and total time for the race.

But wait, there’s more.

With the new hybrid engine system introduced in the middle of last season, drivers can activate a boost from the energy stored. They can use as much as they have in their system and whenever they want.

And that is a difference between the top option. There are times when push-to-pass can’t be used. 

The biggest rule is that for the start of the race and any restart that comes prior to the white flag or prior to three minutes left in a timed event, the push-to-pass can’t be used (the system is disabled) until the car reaches the alternate start-finish line (a line typically before pit entry that is used to time practice and qualifying so a driver can enter the pits after a timed lap rather than drive the entire course again).

Last year at St. Pete, it