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.”
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.”
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.
Q2
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.
New Zealand’s Scott McLaughlin has become an international sensation after transitioning from the heights of the Australian Supercars series to become a race-winning contender in IndyCar. The Kiwi joins RACER’s Marshall Pruett for a walk down pit …
New Zealand’s Scott McLaughlin has become an international sensation after transitioning from the heights of the Australian Supercars series to become a race-winning contender in IndyCar. The Kiwi joins RACER’s Marshall Pruett for a walk down pit lane at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to discuss his life and career.
We’ve put the first quarter of the NTT IndyCar Series season to bed, and with that in mind, it’s time to make a few observations and draw a few conclusions about all that’s taken place before we hit the fast forward button and blast through the …
We’ve put the first quarter of the NTT IndyCar Series season to bed, and with that in mind, it’s time to make a few observations and draw a few conclusions about all that’s taken place before we hit the fast forward button and blast through the month of May, starting with Saturday’s Indianapolis Grand Prix.
• Spanning the opening four rounds, this has been the season of Romain Grosjean. With the 37-year-old leading three of the four races and showing himself to be Andretti Autosport’s most consistent threat and its steadiest performer, he heads to Indy sitting fifth in the championship, just 15 points out of the lead. That breakthrough victory can’t be far away.
• As much as I didn’t anticipate Grosjean would assert himself as Andretti’s top dog (so far), I also failed to imagine a scenario where Colton Herta would get through the four opening races with zero poles and zero wins. Herta’s had more than enough adversity to open the season and holds P10 in the championship, but so has Kyle Kirkwood, whose lone finish inside the top 10 came with his Long Beach win. It’s a bit of deja vu from 2022 for Herta, who entered the Indy GP sitting P11 in the championship. Herta, rolling into the Speedway, while P3 among Andretti’s four drivers? That’s a shocker.
Gavin Baker/Motorsport Images
• Kirkwood’s one spot ahead of Herta in the standings in P9. If it weren’t for his terrible luck at St. Petersburg (launched over Jack Harvey) and the suspension failure at Texas, he’d be a lot closer to Grosjean in the championship. And he’s almost out of bad finishes if he wants to be a title contender; you only get three or four poor results before championship aspirations start to fade, and registering two with 13 rounds left to run means Kirkwood needs to race clean and avoid cartoon anvils over the next five months.
• Marcus Ericsson’s doing something for the first time in his IndyCar career, and it bodes well for the future. A poor qualifying run to P16 in Texas? He flipped that into a finish of P8. Another underwhelming start at Barber where he rolled off P13? Improved to P10 by the checkered flag. Ericsson’s turning bad starts into better results, which is why he’s leading the championship and will continue to do so if he can keep landing on the podium as he’s done twice this year. He’s one of only two drivers — along with Ganassi teammate Alex Palou — to finish inside the top 10 at every round, and that’s how title bids become possible. The only fix Ericsson needs right now is to get his qualifying results back in order.
• Piggybacking on Ericsson’s season to date, Pato O’Ward has been a beast with a pair of seconds and a fourth. If he could go back to Long Beach, avoid the unwise lunge on Kirkwood that caused him to spin and trade a likely podium for P17, O’Ward would be the runaway championship leader.
• Leaving Barber last year, Team Penske landed at the Indy GP as Chevy’s top squad with Scott McLaughlin holding P2 and Josef Newgarden at P3 in the standings; O’Ward and Arrow McLaren, in P5, were second on the Bowtie’s depth chart. The tables have been turned departing Barber where McLaren is Chevy’s No. 1 team heading into the Indy GP, with O’Ward in P2. McLaughlin, in P4, isn’t far behind.
• Newgarden and Kirkwood are having extremely similar seasons where one big win has been surrounded by largely forgettable results. P6 in the standings, Newgarden’s been wearing his anger and frustration on the outside — readily visible in person, and on the broadcasts — which only emerged sporadically last season. Maybe “Angry Josef” is the persona that’s needed to earn a third championship.
• As noted, Palou has been a vision of consistency with all four finishes being between P3 and P8. If there’s a surprise here, it’s not in his solid performances; it’s in how he’s yet to look like a threat for victory, with a brief exception at Texas. Coming off a turbulent 2022 where it took until the 17th and final race for Palou to deliver a strong win, I didn’t anticipate the new season getting under way without him being in the mix for victory on a regular basis.
• Chevrolet caught Honda by surprise last year and ran away with the manufacturers’ championship after winning the first four races and seven more of the remaining 13. In response to its shellacking by the Bowtie, Honda’s taken two of the first four rounds this year and, thankfully, there doesn’t appear to be a major difference between the two, which should make for good fun as both appear capable of winning every race.
• The only caveat to the apparent engine parity is the Indy 500, where Honda mopped the floor with Chevy in 2022. One brand owned the season; the other owned the biggest race. Will we see a reversal of fortunes in qualifying and the race? Or will Chevy match or exceed the power and fuel economy Honda used to such devastating effect at the Speedway? I can’t wait to find out in a few weeks’ time.
• The mounting number of unforced errors by Helio Castroneves has been hard to watch and harder to ignore. Three off-track excursions of his own making at Barber, along with the solo lap 1, Turn 1 spin and crash at Long Beach, have placed the 48-year-old on the hot seat.
• The four-time Indy 500 winner’s struggles are emblematic of his Meyer Shank Racing team’s season. To his credit, Castroneves has MSR’s only top 10 — a P10 at Texas — and every other result when combined with Simon Pagenaud’s output has been P15 or worse. Said another way, of the eight total races with both drivers, seven of the eight finishes have been between P15 and P26, which isn’t sustainable. I can’t think of a tandem that needs to have a transformative Indy 500 more than Castroneves and Pagenaud.
• Rookie Sting Ray Robb heeded the advice of many entering Long Beach: Just get to the finish. And after two DNFs to open his season, the dialed-back mindset helped. A fiery end to Barber wasn’t his fault, but it did compound the issue of completing so few race laps. Of the 525 race laps run in 2023, Robb’s missed out on 101 in just four races.
RACER’s Marshall Pruett recaps the Barber Motorsports Park IndyCar event and then race winner Scott McLaughlin joins in to break down the key aspects of his victory for Team Penske in the No. 3 Chevy. Presented by: RACER’s IndyCar Trackside Report …
RACER’s Marshall Pruett recaps the Barber Motorsports Park IndyCar event and then race winner Scott McLaughlin joins in to break down the key aspects of his victory for Team Penske in the No. 3 Chevy.
If you’re a fan of race strategy, the Children’s of Alabama Indy GP was a thrilling affair as a battle between two- and three-stoppers played out for 90 laps on Sunday, and when it was over, Scott McLaughlin won round four of the NTT IndyCar Series …
If you’re a fan of race strategy, the Children’s of Alabama Indy GP was a thrilling affair as a battle between two- and three-stoppers played out for 90 laps on Sunday, and when it was over, Scott McLaughlin won round four of the NTT IndyCar Series season in front of a large and enthusiastic crowd.
The only caution of the day was triggered on lap 38 to retrieve the stranded No. 51 Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing Honda driven by Sting Ray Robb. The series kept the pits open as the three-stop contingent dove in for tires and fuel while those on two-stops needed to stay out to make their strategy work. The timing didn’t necessarily harm those on two-stops, but it made life a bit easier for those on three.
The New Zealander’s victory came at the expense of polesitter Romain Grosjean—a bridesmaid once again—after the Swiss-born Frenchman led the majority of the race with his two-stop plan in the No. 28 Andretti Autosport Honda. But he succumbed to the pressure applied by the three-stopping McLaughlin late in the contest as he locked a brake and slid wide in Turn 5 on lap 72.
“It hurts,” Grosjean admitted. “The three-stop never wins in Barber, (except) today. We had an incredible car, drove really well; gave it 100 percent, but we got unlucky with that yellow. I gave it all. Congrats to Scott. He deserves to win. We got good points. Our day will come.”
Out of push-to-pass to rectify the error and hold off McLaughlin while powering out of the corner, McLaughlin fired his No. 3 Chevy down the inside of Grosjean on the run to Turn 6 and captured a lead he never surrendered.
“The team advanced me to victory lane,” McLaughlin said. “We had great fuel (mileage). I’m really pumped about it. I’m glad to get a win here. We had a hell of a strategy here today.”
Penske’s Will Power secured third, his first podium of the season, as his team’s gamble to start the race on the faster but less durable Firestone alternate tires paid off with a 1-3 finish; Josef Newgarden, the third member of the Penske trio, had an array of challenges that left him down in 15th.
“It was an extremely good day,” Power said of the call to do an extra stop, which allowed him and the other three-stoppers to go flat out for the entire race.
“It was super fast when we were in clean air. We’re on another championship run. I was able to push the whole way.”
Despite Newgarden’s distant run — “This one got away pretty badly,” he said — Penske’s strategy gamble made all the difference in how the race was settled.
Just off the podium, Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was never a serious threat for the win, but his consistent effort was good enough for fourth in the No. 5 Chevy.
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Chip Ganassi Racing was strong on Saturday, placing Alex Palou in second and Scott Dixon fifth to start the race, but both fell backwards on Sunday as Palou dropped to fifth and Dixon came home in seventh. The only positive, and it was modest, was generated by Ganassi’s championship leader Marcus Ericsson, whose low start of 13th was improved to 10th, which ensured he retained the lead in the Drivers’ standings, but by just three points over O’Ward.
Between the Ganassi duo was Christian Lundgaard, who delivered Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s most competitive run of the season on the way to securing sixth in the No. 45 Honda.
Elsewhere, Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong used a three-stop run to overcome his qualifying penalty and leap from 26th to 11th. Long Beach winner Kyle Kirkwood started and finished 12th on a decidedly average day, and Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Callum Ilott started 15th, fell back, then charged to earn 13th.
Among the final movers, Rinus VeeKay started ninth and finished 16th for Ed Carpenter Racing, and A.J. Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci went in the opposite direction from starting last due to a problem that kept him from posting a lap in qualifying to placing 20th.
Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist was the most resilient driver on the day after making contact with Newgarden on the opening lap that sent his No. 6 Chevy spinning. Relegated to the bottom of the field, he worked a three-stop strategy to all it was worth and recovered to take ninth.
Strategy races can be incredibly boring, and for long stretches of the Alabama GP, there wasn’t much excitement to offer, but once the final stops were completed, the showdown between McLaughlin, Grosjean, and Power made for a fun sprint to the checkered flag.
The party resumes in two weeks at the Indianapolis Grand Prix.
As it happened
The opening lap of the race featured a charging Pato O’Ward who tried to take P2 from Alex Palou, but Palou held firm and stayed close to polesitter Romain Grosjean’s gearbox. Felix Rosenqvist was hit in Turn 2 and spun, falling to the back.
Behind them, Rinus VeeKay was up to P7 from P9 and Colton Herta improved from P14 to P9 by lap 4. All three Penske drivers started on the slower primary tires, and as such, Scott McLaughlin fell prey to Scott Dixon who took P4 from him. Jack Harvey, who started P24, is P27 and last.
Lap 8 and Grosjean has pulled a 1.2s lead over Palou. O’Ward is 2.2s back in third. Championship leader Marcus Ericsson has not improved from his P13 starting position by lap 10.
Josef Newgarden is the first to pit on lap 14 to trade primaries for alternates as he commits to a three-stop strategy. Alexander Rossi pits from P8 the next lap to do the same. Up front, it’s a procession as Grosjean leads Palou by 0.9s on lap 15; O’Ward is 1.8s arrears.
McLaughlin pits at the end of lap 15 to do the same swap to alternates and he’s joined by teammate Will Power as all three Penske drivers commit to three stops. P18-21 are held by Newgarden, McLaughlin, Rossi, and Power after their stops.
The initial pit cycle and drop to the rear of the field for the Penske contingent was overcome in short order with qualifying-like laps clawing time back — a theme throughout the day. Gavin Baker/Lumen
Lap 20 and Grosjean holds 1.3s over Palou and 1.8s over O’Ward; Dixon is 2.7s back in P4, VeeKay is 7.0s behind in P5, and the best driver among them on primaries is Christian Lundgaard in P7, 8.2s behind Grosjean. Lundgaard takes P6 from Herta on lap 21, whose alternates are suffering.
VeeKay is next on Lundgaard’s hit list, taking P5 on Lap 22; Kyle Kirkwood does the same to Herta, relieving his teammate of P7. Ericsson is next to pass Herta, claiming P8 on lap 23. Herta’s in a bad way.
Grosjean’s in control on lap 25 with 1.5s on Palou and 2.5s on O’Ward. They’re holding station and saving fuel to make a two-stop strategy work. Behind them, Kirkwood and Ericsson demote VeeKay, improving to P6 and P7. Herta’s down to P10 after Simon Pagenaud executed a pass.
Lap 26 and Newgarden is already up to P10 and is just 17s behind Grosjean. Impressive, but will it be enough to overcome an extra pit stop?
Lap 28 and Herta pits for primaries; he’ll have to stretch before or after his next and last stop. Newgarden’s up to P8. Lap 29 and Lundgaard’s in, taking alternates. VeeKay pits as well, taking primaries.
Lap 30 and O’Ward and Dixon pit for primaries and exit nose to tail. Grosjean and Palou are in at the end of lap 30 and a long stop for Palou gives Grosjean a big gap. O’Ward takes the spot off of Palou, putting his hot tires to good use. Lundgaard fires his car through the final corner to demote Dixon; the Ganassi cars are losing out at the start of the second stint.
Lap 34 and the leaders are the three-stoppers with Newgarden, McLaughlin, Rossi, Power, and Rosenqvist holding the top five. Grosjean is next, first of the two-stoppers, in sixth, 15.3s behind Newgarden. O’Ward is 2.2s behind Grosjean, separated by David Malukas, who is also on three stops.
Malukas takes P6 from Grosjean and Grosjean is 22.2s back from Newgarden. Lap 37 and the racy McLaughlin takes the lead from Newgarden, who pits for alternates.
Lap 38 and Sting Ray Robb’s car is stalled on the side of the road. It’s a flurry of activity as McLaughlin, Rossi, Power, Rosenqvist, and Malukas pit before the series threw the caution.
The jumbled group of drivers had Grosjean leading McLaughlin, O’Ward, Palou, and Lundgaard as they went back to green on lap 43. Lundgaard passes Palou for P4. Lap 44 and Power takes P8 from Rossi.
Halfway point at Lap 45 and Grosjean has 0.5s over McLaughlin, 2.5s over O’Ward, 3.3s over Lundgaard, and 4.1s over Palou. Championship leader Ericsson is P12. Lap 48 and Castroneves is off the track for the third time this weekend.
Grosjean and McLaughlin are pushing out from the others; they’re separated by 0.9s on Lap 52, but O’Ward, in third, is 6.7s down and Lundgaard is 7.6s back in P4. Lap 54 and O’Ward is 7.5s arrears.
Lap 60 and Grosjean’s 2.6s up on McLaughlin while O’Ward is 11.1s behind.
Having been dominant seemingly all weekend, the two-stopper just didn’t allow Romain Grosjean to stretch his legs as he had in qualifying. Instead he wound up mired in the weeds of tire and fuel saving. Richard Dole/Lumen
Grosjean pits at the end of lap 60 as does O’Ward as both take primaries. Lap 62 and Palou and Dixon and Kirkwood pit for primaries; Dixon charged by Newgarden, who was holding up the pack, just before pitting and Newgarden lost a few more positions as a result.
Lap 63 and McLaughlin leads Grosjean by 27.5s, and he’s in to take primaries. McLaughlin takes the lead on cold tires. Unbelievable effort by McLaughlin to draw down the gap before pitting. Grosjean retakes the lead in the final corner as they lightly bang wheels. Masterful move by the new leader.
Lap 66 and Power pits from the lead for his third stop. The rest of the three-stoppers should clear the path for Grosjean and McLaughlin to reclaim first and second.
Grosjean’s got no margin of comfort as McLaughlin is just 0.3s behind while saving fuel as we reach lap 70. He’s also out of push-to-pass as McLaughlin has 29s left to use.
Lap 72 and Grosjean runs wide into Turn 5 and hands the lead to McLaughlin, who used some push-to-pass to ensure he motored by entering Turn 6. Lap 80 and Grosjean’s comfortable hold on P2 is gone as Power is 2.0s behind, having cut it from 10.0s sec.
Power tried his best but didn’t have enough to get past Grosjean; McLaughlin has his fourth career IndyCar win with a 1.7s gap to Grosjean and 3.2s over Power as Penske takes is second win of the year and Chevy takes its second as well.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and RACER’s Marshall Pruett discuss the opening practice session at Barber Motorsports Park which the Kiwi led in his No. 3 Chevy. Presented by: RACER’s IndyCar Trackside Report at Barber Motorsports Park is presented …
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and RACER’s Marshall Pruett discuss the opening practice session at Barber Motorsports Park which the Kiwi led in his No. 3 Chevy.
Jack Harvey spun. Helio Castroneves crashed. Romain Grosjean’s engine let the smoke out. Will Power crashed. The opening practice session for the Children’s of Alabama Indy GP wasn’t lacking in drama as the 75-minute frame featured a number of …
Jack Harvey spun. Helio Castroneves crashed. Romain Grosjean’s engine let the smoke out. Will Power crashed.
The opening practice session for the Children’s of Alabama Indy GP wasn’t lacking in drama as the 75-minute frame featured a number of slowdowns and a pair of stoppages among the NTT IndyCar Series field, and once it was over, Team Penske made a statement with Scott McLaughlin’s No. 3 Chevy producing a 1m06.6610s lap and teammate Power claimed third at the checkered flag with a 1m06.8985s run in the No. 12 Chevy. Between them was Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta with a 1m06.8193s in the No. 26 Honda.
“Really happy,” McLaughlin said. “To go P1 at the start is fantastic. I think we’re in a really good spot, but there’s a lot of racing left to do.”
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After 45 minutes were gone, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou was the fastest in the 27-car field with a lap of 1m07.3779s in the No. 10 Honda.
With Grosjean’s Andretti Honda cleared from the Barber Motorsports Park circuit, the field fired out and kept busy during the last 30 minutes of the session. Some teams gave Firestone’s faster alternate tires a try. Using Firestone’s primary tires, Ganassi’s Scott Dixon took over the top spot with a lap of 1m07.1601s in the No. 9 Honda with 20 minutes remaining on the clock. CGR teammate Marcus Ericsson made it a Ganassi 1-2-3 in the No. 8 Honda with a tour of 1m07.3463s.
At the 15-to-go mark, it was a Honda 1-5 with Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard in fourth and Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports’ David Malukas in fifth, thanks to the added grip offered by alternate tires.
Another red flag was required when Power crashed on his first flying lap with alternates installed on his car; Meyer Shank Racing’s Simon Pagenaud leapt to P1 on alternates just as the red flag waves with 12 minutes left, posting a 1m07.1071s in the No. 60 Honda. McLaughlin also posted a quick lap to claim third in on primaries.
Although the session was red, IndyCar did not stop the clock, which inspired most of the field to charge out at the same time when Power ambled back to the pits to get reads on car balance with the alternate tires they’ll use on Saturday in qualifying.
In that seven-minute adventure, Lundgaard was first to go P1 and moments later, Ericsson took over the top spot. Herta then went first but McLaughlin ripped it away with a 1m06.6610s lap that stood for the last 120 seconds of the session.
