Scott McLaughlin – Page 2 – Syndication Server

McLaughlin starts his bounce back with commanding win at Barber

The 90 laps of racing at Barber Motorsports Park were among the best we’ve seen with the IndyCar Series as differing race strategies and a big pack of front-runners starting deep in the 27-car field made for a thriller won by Team Penske’s Scott …

“Thank you so much. So proud of you,” McLaughlin said to his team after crossing the finish line.

The polesitter and front-row Team Penske partner Will Power committed to a three-stop strategy, fell out of contention when the first caution arrived at an inopportune time that favored the two-stoppers, and shot back into the winning frame at the end of the race as subsequent cautions blighted the chanced of those like Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou who was leading the two-stop contingent.

With McLaughlin driving like an animal and Palou forced to lap the road course in an extreme fuel-saving mode—at times between 2-3s slower than the Penske driver—McLaughlin pulled out a big enough lead to make his third and final stop and get back to racing ahead of Palou. Power was able to do the same, giving Penske a 1-2 finish.

“We just have to keep rolling,” McLaughlin said to NBC after climbing from his car. “We know our job; we know what we need to do. I’m just super proud of the execution. …A couple yellows didn’t fall our way, but we just showed our pace.

“Execution, execution — that’s our word, and we’ll just keep going.”

Ganassi’s two-stop plan for Palou kept going south as his rookie teammate Linus Lundqvist, also on a three-stop run, charged past Palou to grab his first podium in the No. 8 Honda.

The back-and-forth affair made for a fun blend of charging and saving with no chance to predict how the race would be decided as the cautions shifted the odds between the diverging strategies.

What a wild start to the INDYCAR race at Barber!

📺 : NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/2AKaBUsu3R

— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) April 28, 2024

McLaughlin led away from pole with teammate Power and Christian Lundgaard in tow. Colton Herta and Santino Ferrucci had two wheel-banging incidents, first at Turn 1 and soon after at Turn 5. Ferrucci got the better of the last exchange.

Starting 16th, Scott Dixon charged up to eighth in the opening laps.

Pato O’Ward’s day went sideways on the second lap when the 2022 Barber winner spun on his own under braking entering Turn 5. The Mexican fell from fourth to 24th.

The first caution of the day arrived on the sixth lap when Pietro Fittipaldi was fired into the barriers after being hit by O’Ward. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver backed into the wall and broke the right of the No. 30 Honda.

The early caution was everything that teams on a three-stop strategy did not want to see; some altered their plans and began saving fuel to try and make a two-stop plan work.

With the field under control, eight drivers running towards the back—led by O’Ward — took the opportunity to pit on lap 8. Getting back to action on lap 11, McLaughlin pulled away again as O’Ward was instructed to perform a drive-through on pit lane as the penalty for taking Fittipaldi out.

Dixon’s forward progression was halted on lap 18 when he paid a nearly identical visit to the Turn 5 gravel trap as O’Ward. Trying to go by Graham Rahal on the right into the corner, he found Rahal moving to the right, which squeezed Dixon onto the curb and grass. Rahal did not appear to be aware of Dixon’s presence. Dixon fell from seventh to 18th.

Up front, McLaughlin held a comfortable 2s lead over Power and 3.2s on Lundgaard on lap 22. Turn 5 — the bane of drivers today — caught Will Power on the next lap as he couldn’t get his car stopped in time to round the corner; he fell to third after driving through the runoff. Now second, Lundgaard went straight to pit lane and became the first of the leading three-stoppers to hold firm to the plan.

McLaughlin held 7.9s over Power and 13.7 on Alex Palou on lap 28. Power pitted at the end of the lap and McLaughlin followed one lap later on lap 29. Palou, who inherited the lead, pitted on lap 30.

Josef Newgarden’s race took a backwards step after pitting on lap 32. A fight with Marcus Armstrong—on hot tires—saw Newgarden try to defend his position entering the penultimate corner, but contact between Armstrong’s left-front tire from the inside line and Newgarden’s right-rear sent the Penske driver into the runoff. Dueling over 12th, Newgarden returned in 17th.

Next in the Turn 5 clash department were Romain Grosjean and Kyle Kirkwood, with Grosjean winning the wheel-banging exchange. Kirkwood settled the score in the same corner, and added some flair as Grosjean was knocked into the runoff.

Alexander Rossi was looking like Arrow McLaren’s top performer until he pitted and returned to the track with the left-rear wheel working its way loose. Stuck in the gravel with a three-wheeled car, the second caution of the race was required on lap 44 to remove his car.

McLaughlin pitted from the lead under caution on lap 47 as did Power; they resumed in 17th and 18th respectively, as Power got out ahead of Lundgaard, who restarted from 19th. The strategy battle to see if those three-stoppers — former leaders — could salvage their days as the timing of the two cautions turned the odds in favor of the two-stoppers at the front.

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Palou led the field on the lap 49 restart and had Felix Rosenqvist close behind in second.

The third caution was required on lap 55 when Sting Ray Robb’s A.J. Foyt Racing car turned hard right at the left-hand Turn 1 and hit the barriers. “I think the steering wheel broke,” Robb said before climbing from the car. Most of the field, led by Palou, pitted on lap 56.

Palou got out first with Rosenqvist and third-place Armstrong drag racing to the exit where Rosenqvist was slightly ahead. Armstrong forced the issue and raced him out and moved ahead on track. All three were done with pitting.

The caution timing, coming a few laps earlier than the two-stoppers wanted, tipped the odds back in favor of the three-stoppers. The two-stoppers like Palou down in 11th would need another caution to help; otherwise, extreme fuel saving would be required. Santino Ferrucci led the field to the green on lap 60, but it was waved off.

McLaughlin was in third, Power, fifth, and the extra lap under caution helped the two-stoppers chasing three-stoppers like McLaughlin.

Ferrucci and Lundqvist held strong in first and second, which was great for them but terrible for McLaughlin who couldn’t get by and needed to clear them and streak away to build a big gap over Palou before pitting for the third and final time.

With 23 to go, McLaughlin was 16s ahead of Palou; he’d need to get to at least 27s to be able to pit and return in front of the Spaniard and the other two-stoppers. It was up to 20s with 21 laps to go. At 16 to go, McLaughlin had all he needed with 31.1s over Palou and he pitted for the final time, as did Power.

The Penske duo returned to the track ahead of Palou — game over for the Ganassi driver’s winning ambitions. Three-stopping rookie teammate Lundqvist was pushing hard and passed Armstrong and Rosenqvist before setting off the chase Palou in third with 12 to go. Lundqvist captured third with 11 to run and had an 8.1s deficit to Power to manage.

A caution for the spun and stalled Christian Rasmussen led to a restart with two laps to go and the top three of McLaughlin, Power, and Lundqvist held station.

“I’m extremely happy with a podium,” Lundqvist said. “It’s my first in IndyCar, and it’s been a bit rough for me the first couple of races, and even struggled a little bit this weekend, but man, what can I say — the team did an amazing job. The American Legion Honda [was super fast today] and I basically just listened to whatever [the team] told me to do. They said, ‘Be patient here and you’ll get your reward at the end,’ and we definitely did.

“I think that was the first time [I ever] got to pass some cars, so I was excited about that!”

The NTT Data IndyCar Series heads home next for the the Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course May 10-11.

RESULTS

McLaughlin beats Power to Barber pole

It was a hot and humid 80-degree afternoon in Alabama as the IndyCar Series field headed out to qualify for Sunday’s 90-lap race at Barber Motorsports Park. Adjusting to the rising temperature was a big part of how some teams and drivers thrived and others struggled, and with the clock wound down to the final minute, it was Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin who took pole, knocking teammate Will Power off of the top starting spot by a scant 0.0970s.

For McLaughlin, who won last year’s Barber race, it was his sixth career IndyCar pole position, and comes after a tough week for the New Zealander and the rest of Team Penske.

“The car today was just phenomenal,” McLaughlin said. “We’ve hardly changed it. When you arrive here, you drop it out of the truck, you don’t have to change it that much, you build more confidence, more confidence, more confidence. You just find the limit, know the limit. Thankfully the car was really good on that final set of reds. We were able to put her up the front.”

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With McLaughlin’s lap of 1m05.9490s setting the standard, only Power and Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard were close (+0.1328s) to the Kiwi. Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward staved off a bad day for the entire team by claiming fourth (+0.3450s) as his teammates qualified 16th or lower.

Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist — with a fresh engine after his Honda motor failed in the morning practice — continued his strong season of Saturday runs by capturing fifth (+0.5034s) and like O’Ward with his team, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Armstrong offered the one ray of hope after securing sixth (+0.9532s) as the lone member of the five-car team to crack the Firestone Fast Six.

The opening phase of the Firestone Fast 12 saw Alex Palou lead the 13-car group, followed by Pato O’Ward, Marcus Armstrong, Graham Rahal, Romain Grosjean, and Kyle Kirkwood transfer into the next round. Among the surprises were Long Beach winner Scott Dixon and runner-up Colton Herta, who missed the cut and will start 13th and 15th respectively.

“It is what it is,” Dixon said. “We just missed it. We need to find out why we didn’t have the speed.”

IndyCar newcomer Luca Ghiotto showed well, qualifying 21st in the 27-deep field on his second day in an Indy car.

The second phase of qualifying with the other 14 cars was led by McLaughlin, Power, Josef Newgarden, Lundgaard, Rosenqvist and Tom Blomqvist.

The surprises were found with Alexander Rossi and Marcus Ericsson, who will roll off in 16th and 18th respectively.

“We’re missing something and it’s a bit strange because the car feels OK to drive,” Ericsson said.

Rinus VeeKay, fastest in the morning practice session, was unable to make a proper qualifying attempt when an issue at the back of his car kept him on pit lane.

“We were losing power, but it’s because of an electrical issue,” VeeKay said.

The third round of qualifying — the Fast 12 — sent Lundgaard, Power, McLaughlin, Armstrong, O’Ward and Rosenqvist through to fight for pole.

Seventh through 12th was set with Rahal and four straight surprises in Newgarden, Kirkwood, Palou and Grosjean; Blomqvist completed the group.

“I didn’t do a great lap. It’s a decent spot for us,” Newgarden said.

RESULTS

McLaughlin on slow start: ‘I look at it as a challenge’

Buried down in last place in the championship after his podium finish at St. Petersburg was taken away during this week’s Team Penske push-to-pass contretemps, Scott McLaughlin is ready to start his comeback Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park and see …

It’s a tall task for the New Zealander, but with last year’s Barber victory in mind, he’s at the perfect track to begin digging himself out of the championship cellar.

“I look at it as a challenge. I look at it with excitement,” he told RACER. “I know what this team is capable of. I’m proud to drive for this team. I know we can win this race this weekend.”

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With his third-place run at St. Petersburg changed to 27th, and a tough day last Sunday in Long Beach where his No. 3 Chevy suffered a late and race-ending transmission problem which left him in 26th, McLaughlin sits 27th in the drivers’ standings with five points to his credit. To vault into title contention, the New Zealander will need to win and win and win again to bridge the points gap.

“I know we can potentially win the [Indy] 500 and then we’ll go onto amazing things if we get momentum because that’s exactly what we did last year,” he said.

“It is what it is now that that this stuff is behind us and we’ve got to focus forward. And it comes from my side; I’m the QB for the team. I gotta lead them through it and I can’t wait to do that.”

McLaughlin responds to St. Petersburg disqualification

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin wants to clear the air after he was disqualified from March’s NTT IndyCar Series season opener in St. Petersburg, where he stood on the podium in third place. He and his race-winning teammate Josef Newgarden in the No. …

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin wants to clear the air after he was disqualified from March’s NTT IndyCar Series season opener in St. Petersburg, where he stood on the podium in third place.

He and his race-winning teammate Josef Newgarden in the No. 2 Chevy were found to have made illegal use of IndyCar’s push-to-pass system when it was deactivated by the series.

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What the New Zealander shared in an evening post to social media aligns with what RACER has been told regarding the specific actions with his No. 3 Chevy team.

“First and foremost, I am proud to be a member of Team Penske,” he wrote. “I fully stand with everyone one of my teammates. Simply put, a mistake was made. I have the highest level of integrity and it is important to protect both my own reputation and that of the team.

“I was not aware of the situation with the software. In this instance, I used a single, very brief (1.9-second) deployment of push to pass in a section of the track, (the) exit of Turn 9, where it is typically utilized throughout the race. I hit the button out of habit, but I did not pass any cars, nor did I gain any time advantage.

“The data, which IndyCar has, confirms all of this information. While I accept the penalty, I want to be clear that I did not gain an advantage over my competitors.

“IndyCar’s competition is the best in the world and I would take no pleasure in achieving success in any way other than honestly. We will all press forward from here and focus on the task at hand this weekend at Barber.”

McLaughlin ‘hit everything but the pace car’ en route to second place at Laguna Seca

By his own calculation, Scott McLaughlin “hit everything but the pace car” on Sunday at Laguna Seca, but it didn’t stop him earning a second-place finish that vaulted him from fifth to third in the championship. “For me, [third in the points] is a …

“For me, [third in the points] is a pride thing,” said McLaughlin, whose previous best IndyCar championship finish was fourth last year.

“More importantly, we wanted to be the top Chevy team, beat McLaren, and we did that. I wanted to beat my teammates. Ultimately ticked both those goals.

“I talk about beating our teammates… we have a seriously good camaraderie between the three of us. It’s very competitive. It gets tense at times. That’s what you want in a relationship. I think we all push each other to new levels. To beat those two is a proud moment. [I’m] super-pumped.”

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McLaughlin’s No. 3 Team Penske Chevy found itself in the vicinity of several of Sunday’s many incidents, and the New Zealander said that the key to the afternoon was to make the most of the things that he and the team could control, and try not to get thrown off his game by the many things that they couldn’t.

“I think I had one really good restart where I picked off sort of six or seven cars,” he said. “I was just hauling. So much fun.

“But it was wild. I mean, for me as a driver, just thinking of my race, it was probably the most crazy race I’ve ever had in my career just from an up-and-down perspective. It probably takes me back to the year I lost the Supercars championship for the first time. Up and down, penalties, things you could avoid and couldn’t avoid. It was just nuts.

“It was peak IndyCar. To be able to come back from that is pretty cool.”

Malukas puzzled by McLaughlin’s stance on contact at WWTR

David Malukas shrugged off any accusation that he did something wrong while wrestling with Scott McLaughlin for a top-five finish in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway. The Dale Coyne Racing w/HMD-Honda driver …

The Dale Coyne Racing w/HMD-Honda driver famously passed McLaughlin for second place in the closing laps of last year’s IndyCar race, and this year the pair again found themselves battling hard on several occasions throughout the race.

The decisive moment came in the race’s final 60 laps, when Malukas dived down the inside of McLaughlin’s Penske Chevrolet at Turn 1. The pole winner — who had to start from 10th due to an early engine-change penalty — squeezed down, made contact with the DCR car and the subsequent wobble sent him high and cost him several places. Malukas gathered up the moment and charged home in third, while McLaughlin also recovered well to claim fifth.

“I followed the car in front on the inside,” said Malukas. “Obviously for position, he squeezed down. I was right on the curb. It’s not like I washed up into him: it’s more that he cut into me. We had a tap. I managed to save it. I guess he did, as well.

“He came to me at the podium and said something about it. I don’t know if he’s, like, oppressed by it. I don’t know. I think he got a beef from that.

“From my standpoint, if you squeeze somebody down on the inside, what else are you going to expect? I can only go on the curb so much.”

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Quizzed as to how or why he and Coyne had again shone at this track, Malukas said, “We had a really good car. Going off the start, I was comparing to [early leader] Newgarden there. Our tires were falling off very similarly — compared to Herta, as well. He was falling off quicker than we were. I knew at that point we had a chance to go for it, with all the yellow playing out, the strategy.

“We tried to do what Dixon did. I don’t know how he can do it. We were falling off like a cliff trying to meet that fuel target. I was lifting at the start/finish line. I am like, ‘Guys, that’s not possible.’ We had to kind of cut it off and go heavy push from there. Then at that point I was just dealing with lapped cars.

“Overall, we had a really good car, and it was good for the team. Another podium at Gateway. Yeah, going through obviously IndyCar two times here and through Indy NXT, we just keep getting podiums.”

Malukas, who described conditions off-line as “treacherous,” added: “If you can do whatever possible to reduce marbles and we can actually use the second lane, then the lapped cars won’t be as much of an issue.”

McLaughlin wins WWTR pole, but cedes P1 to Newgarden

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin took his fifth IndyCar pole and his first on an oval, but will roll off from 10th for this afternoon’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 after taking a nine-place grid penalty, leaving the front row to teammate Josef …

McLaughlin was the only driver to run a 183mph lap of the 1.25-mile World Wide Technology Raceway in this morning’s qualifying session and produced an average of 182.951mph.

As if the session hadn’t been delayed enough — by almost a full day due to the torrential conditions in Madison, Illinois on Saturday — there was a further hold-up to clean the track after a couple of USAC cars spewed fluids on the asphalt.

Finally the action got underway with the cars running in reverse championship entrant point order, thus full-time owner and part-time driver Ed Carpenter hit the track first. His two laps were 174mph efforts, his second lap being 0.4mph faster than his first, but this was immediately shaded by rookie Benjamin Pedersen of AJ Foyt Racing, who was in the 176 zone.

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Sting Ray Robb of Dale Coyne Racing ran a 176.751 on his first lap but leapt to 178.845 on his second, producing a two-lap average of 177.792, but both of Devlin DeFrancesco’s laps were high 178s so he went to the top of the speed charts.

That didn’t last long, as Conor Daly — replacing Jack Harvey in the No. 30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda — topped the 180mph barrier on his second lap to generate a 179.928mph average. That survived a strong attack from rookie Linus Lundqvist, still subbing for Simon Pagenaud in the Meyer Shank Racing entry.

Santino Ferrucci was the first driver to run 180mph on his first lap, but he felt the rear of his Foyt car dramatically let go at Turns 3-4 and had to back out, and so his second lap was only a 172.

David Malukas was the first drive to run two laps north of 180mph, and his second lap was 181.256 — the fastest lap yet seen this weekend — so the average for the Dale Coyne Racing Honda driver was an impressive 181.091.

Takuma Sato, in his final race for Chip Ganassi Racing Honda this year, went to the top of the charts with a 181.427mph average, after becoming the first driver to run 181s on both laps. However, he is one of several drivers who will have to drop nine places on the grid due to his car’s early engine change.

Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren Chevrolet immediately edged him with a 181.104 followed by the first 182mph lap, and moved to the top. That was an average that Romain Grosjean of Andretti Autosport Honda couldn’t match, but RoGro’s teammate Colton Herta went fastest with two 181.9 laps.

Will Power — in a rebuilt car after last night’s shunt — produced a 180.774mph — while the driver who he struck, Marcus Ericsson, had a major struggle in the spare Ganassi car sheathed in American Legion colors, running two 178.8s.

Pato O’Ward shaded teammate Rosenqvist to claim second (for now), but McLaughlin set a 182.5 followed by a 183.395, to set an average of 182.951. That was better than four-time WWTR winner Newgarden could manage, but Newgarden will start from pole thanks to McLaughlin being among those taking a nine-place grid drop.

That’s also applicable to the last two runners, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou, who ran 181.4 and 181.5mph averages respectively.

RESULTS

STARTING LINEUP (with penalties applied)

Disappointed McLaughlin says Nashville restarts were ‘a joke’

Nashville polesitter Scott McLaughlin was left downbeat after being unable to convert his car’s pace into victory in the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix. Although the Team Penske driver led the first 24 laps of the race, with Pato O’Ward’s Arrow …

Nashville polesitter Scott McLaughlin was left downbeat after being unable to convert his car’s pace into victory in the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.

Although the Team Penske driver led the first 24 laps of the race, with Pato O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren simply unable to keep pace, the field was bunched on lap 13 by a caution for an on-track mechanical failure for Dale Coyne Racing’s David Malukas. Alex Palou took the opportunity to pit, but the other front-runners did not, and while staying out was obviously the right way to go for the primary-tired runners, the teams whose drivers started out on alternate rubber were going to lose tire performance long before they ran out of fuel.

McLaughlin nonetheless pulled away from his pursuers on the restart, but the untimely yellow meant the field was still running close together when he finally had to cede his lead and pit. Thus he was buried in the pack, and when those who started on primaries such as eventual winner Kyle Kirkwood and Romain Grosjean made their stops, McLaughlin hadn’t found the clean air to make time on them, and they rejoined ahead.

What disappointed him in the closing laps is that, having passed Grosjean to run second, he didn’t have the pace in the two final restarts to tackle Kirkwood.

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“Yeah, yeah, I’m disappointed, but it is what it is,” said the former Supercars legend. “I think we had a really fast car today. That first yellow destroyed a few things… You hope it doesn’t come, but it came. You take it or lose your advantage, try to reset and go again. That’s what we decided — the latter.

“We did pretty well. We were able to come back a little bit, but overall Kyle just had that little shorter stop that he could do [and] away they went. I was trying to do my best to hunt him down at the end; I just had a poor restart.

“I had no temp in my rear tires for some reason. So annoying. I don’t know what happened; I didn’t change my procedure. I’m normally pretty good on restarts, but I was terrible. Got to do a little bit of study on that. I think if I was a little bit closer, I might have been able to maybe throw a little dive bomb at him. Unfortunately, couldn’t.”

McLaughlin didn’t like the new restart zone between Turns 9 and 10, as he felt it actually bred chaos, almost guaranteeing the shunt that caused a red flag before a four-lap shootout.

“I just think from a sport perspective, the restarts are a joke. I think we need to start on the start/finish line. We cannot pass until the start/finish line…You’re always going to have these clusters that cause red flags and make us look like…

“There’s no cadence. Once there’s a yellow flag on a street circuit, it’s just a free-for-all. People [dive-bomb]. We’re well within our rights to do that. If we want to have a pure race, we could have had a 10-lap shootout, me and Kyle there at the end. Instead we’re stop, start, stop, start. The action is fantastic. We just have no race.

“I think it happens at Long Beach. We talked about doing it — about not passing till the apex of the last corner… I think when it goes green, there’s kamikazes at the back that don’t care — well within their right to throw it inside when it turns green. That’s fine. But we just have this terrible stop/start, amateurish looking finish to races.

“I’m going to speak to Jay [Frye, IndyCar president] about it and [Kyle] Novak [race director]. We just need to go apex last corner or start/finish line – make a point where you can’t pass, just to get it going.

“Look, I might be wrong. I might crash in Turn 1. What I’m saying — I’ve done it in Supercars. Formula 1 does it. Other sports around the world do it. It just gets the race going. Everyone is on cold tires. Someone is going to have a mistake.”

McLaughlin says Nashville qualifying was ‘probably the best of my IndyCar career’

IndyCar’s Nashville polesitter for the second straight year, Scott McLaughlin, believes it was his best ever qualifying session in his young career stateside. The three-time Supercars champion, who made his IndyCar debut in the 2020 IndyCar finale, …

IndyCar’s Nashville polesitter for the second straight year, Scott McLaughlin, believes it was his best ever qualifying session in his young career stateside.

The three-time Supercars champion, who made his IndyCar debut in the 2020 IndyCar finale, was able to nail such a strong first lap on Firestone alternates in Q1 Group 1 that he was able to park his Team Penske Chevrolet and save some more life in that tire set for the Firestone Fast Six.

He duly delivered when it mattered, taking pole for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix by over 0.32s ahead of Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward.

For McLaughlin, it was the fourth pole of his 46-race IndyCar career.

“Really satisfying because it all started in Q1 for us,” he said. “Pumped a decent lap out there, 0.6s better than P2. We were able to do one lap on our greens; bolted those on for Q3. I just had to make sure we got to the Fast Six, which we did.

“Every lap in qualy, nailed it pretty good. A really satisfying qualifying session – probably the best of my IndyCar career, to be honest.”

He described his pole-winning effort of 1m14.6099s – 101.327mph around the 2.1-mile street course – as “the money one – really nice, juicy. I’m really happy with that.

“Honestly, same car as what we ran last year. It’s just been unreal. The Chevy has been awesome. [There’s] been a lot of gains everywhere. I think we’ve made improvements. Overall, just to come here with the same philosophy, just nail laps – it’s a good feeling, especially with the interruptions between sessions.

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“I actually wanted it to rain. I was excited with the rain. The rain was a lot of fun this morning; [I] had a blast. Learn a ton every time I’m in the rain. Nice to be fast in the wet and dry.”

The 28-year-old New Zealander admitted he felt like last year’s race at Nashville got away from him, when he was beaten by compatriot Scott Dixon who had been recovering from an early accident with a wildly alternate strategy.

“The final stint there, we were 15th,” he recalled, “Managed to lose by a nose. A lot went on. Our car was phenomenal. I feel like it’s just as good this year. Just a matter of… I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. You can’t even plan, really. The guy won last year doing six stops!

“You just got to play it on the run and try and do the best job, execute every lap that I can. Pit stops need to be good. The reason we were back there last year was a bad pitstop. That was an unfortunate thing that doesn’t really happen on my car.

“Yeah, I’m super pumped for tomorrow to see what we got…

“I mean, you’re just waiting for the yellow light to flash up on your dash or something like that. You can’t control anything like that. It’s a matter of me controlling what I can control, [and] execute. I feel like I’ve done that all weekend. It’s just a matter of executing for tomorrow’s race.”

McLaughlin dominates Nashville GP qualifying as Dixon crashes

The delayed qualifying session for the Big Machine Music Grand Prix at Nashville produced a thrilling battle that saw Scott McLaughlin clinch pole position for Team Penske – his second straight pole here – while compatriot and defending race-winner …

The delayed qualifying session for the Big Machine Music Grand Prix at Nashville produced a thrilling battle that saw Scott McLaughlin clinch pole position for Team Penske — his second straight pole here — while compatriot and defending race-winner Scott Dixon had a rare shunt.

Firestone Fast Six

Romain Grosjean and Pato O’Ward ran their sighting laps on primary tires, with Colton Herta and Alex Palou running their more used alternates. But it was McLaughlin who delivered a 1m16.0493s on his banker lap, before switching to his freshest set of alternates. He had put one less flyer on his set of reds from Q1 Group 1, so potentially had an advantage in the Fast Six.

Grosjean used primaries to deliver a 1m15.9921 to go top but that was never going to hold. Sure enough, Pato O’Ward on alternate tires produced a 1min15.3506s to take P1, but only until Palou used a fresh set of primaries to go top with 1m15.2462s. Herta then shaved a slight fraction off that benchmark, but McLaughlin absolutely demolished it with a 1m14.6099, 0.6sec clear of the field at the time — easily enough to claim his fourth IndyCar pole.

O’Ward is one of IndyCar’s ultimate fighters and threw his Arrow McLaren Chevrolet around the streets to halve McLaughlin’s advantage and grab the outside front row slot ahead of Herta and Palou.

Malukas did a fine job to nip ahead of Grosjean to take fifth.

McLaughlin made his first flyer on primaries look easy, with a 1min15.1900s lap on his third lap, over a quarter second clear of Grosjean, but teammate Herta delivered a lap just 0.05s shy before he joined the majority of the field pitted to collect a set of Firestone alternates.

Grosjean broke through the 75s barrier first with a 1m14.7695s – an average of 101.111mph – but remarkably that swiftly was eclipsed by four cars — O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, Herta, Palou and McLaughlin.

Power was just bumped out of the top six when Scott Dixon made contact with the apex at Turn 11, which sent him understeering into the outside wall, bringing out the red flag. With under a minute left before the stoppage, race control declared everyone would be allowed one last flying lap when action resumed. O’Ward, Palou and Malukas stayed in pitlane, the latter counting on no one outside the top six improving and bumping him out.

Dale Coyne called it right…but only just. While Power and Newgarden knew they couldn’t get their tires up to temp in time, Kyle Kirkwood was only 0.015s shy of jumping into the top six.

Lundqvist was elated with 11th for his debut.

Q1 Group 2

On primary Firestones, and with the aid of the rubber laid down by Group 1, Palou laid down a 1m15.6071s lap, all-but breaching the 100mph barrier. Herta then improved on that by hundredths, despite the distraction of Power spin-turning his car in the Turn 9 run-off area.

With everyone switching to alternate tires, it was Grosjean and then Power who jumped to the top initially, but Palou’s 15.0849 put him on top. Herta and Kirkwood then delivered a 1-2 for Andretti Autosport Honda, Herta’s P1 being a 1m15.0030s – an average of 100.796mph.

Their teammate Grosjean also got through, along with Palou, O’Ward and Power, who kissed the wall on his final lap.

Surprises that didn’t get through: Felix Rosenvist, a mere 0.0039s behind Power and less than a tenth ahead of Marcus Armstrong, plus the other Marcus at Ganassi — 2021 Nashville winner Ericsson — also failed to make the cut.

Q1 Group 1

As luck would have it, this first group was much the ‘easier’ for the big guns such as defending Nashville winner Dixon, defending Nashville polesitter McLaughlin and hometown hero Newgarden.

The peril — flying laps could get interrupted by incidents from other runners. Benjamin Pedersen caused a red flag within a couple of minutes, which cost him his two fastest laps and any chance of graduation to Q2.

McLaughlin went top with a 1min16.6839sec on his Firestone primary tires, and lowered that to a 1m15.9916s on his fourth lap, 1m15.8671s on his fifth. That left him 0.23s clear of Christian Lundgaard, Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s best on alternate tires.

On this softer Firestones, Dixon moved to the top with a 1m15.7094s, 0.12s ahead of Alexander Rossi’s Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. McLaughlin’s scintillating effort on these alternates was a 1m15.1629s, 100.582mph average, and over half a second clear of Dixon.

Behind the two Kiwis, David Malukas snatched third in his Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Honda ahead of Rossi.

Newgarden wound up fifth, while IndyCar debutant Linus Lundqvist produced a brilliant effort (albeit using two sets of reds) to nudge Lundgaard out of the top six and outqualify Meyer Shank Racing Honda teammate Helio Castroneves by 0.13s.

RESULTS