Josef Newgarden focused on defending Indy 500 title

INDIANAPOLIS — Josef Newgarden is focused only on defending his Indianapolis 500 victory. If the recent Team Penske cheating scandal has stained his reputation, the two-time IndyCar champion doesn’t seem to care.

It was business as usual for Newgarden on Tuesday’s opening day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where all-day rain kept him off track for all but a single lap. With idle time came chatter about Newgarden’s standing in the IndyCar paddock and whether he has damaged his credibility among his peers.

“I’d ask him. I don’t think he’s said a word to anybody,” rival driver Graham Rahal said.

Newgarden set an entirely different scene and insisted everything has felt rather normal over the three weeks since IndyCar stripped him of his season-opening victory for illegally using the push-to-pass system during restarts, when the boost of horsepower is banned.

Team Penske had installed the same software system it had used during August testing of hybrid engines and it included an override code that allowed the three Penske drivers to use P2P at times the rest of the field could not. All three Penske drivers were fined $25,000, even though Will Power never used the function.

Roger Penske, who owns the race team, IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500, has since suspended four team members — including team president Tim Cindric — for two races and the benching covers the May 26 “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

Although Penske maintains the software was mistakenly installed and chalked the entire incident up to miscommunication and a breakdown of processes, Newgarden has said he thought the rule had been changed when he pushed the button and unexpectedly received a horsepower boost. He has admitted to illegally using the P2P three times in the March race at St. Petersburg, Florida.

Regardless of intent, the entire scandal has tainted Team Penske and is hanging over IndyCar’s showcase event and its reigning winner. A photograph from Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama, the first race held after Newgarden’s disqualification, showed all the drivers standing and talking ahead of the start with Newgarden standing alone off to the side looking at his phone.

But he denied Tuesday there’s any friction, despite what Rahal intimated.

“It’s felt really good, to be honest,” Newgarden said. “Everything’s felt pretty normal this month for me.”

It got a bit awkward when Newgarden was told that Rahal, who was standing…