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David Malsher-Lopez

IndyCar Barber: McLaughlin beats Grosjean for fourth win

Romain Grosjean led Alex Palou away as Pato O’Ward swooped inside Palou into Turn 1, but when O’Ward also tried to get around Grosjean at Turn 5 he lost momentum, and Palou was able to draft by him into Turn 8 to reclaim second.

Scott Dixon got around Scott McLaughlin, and all three Penskes were struggling for early pace on primary tires, although Josef Newgarden did move up to sixth, but only after side-by-side contact with Felix Rosenqvist at Turn 1 that looped the Arrow McLaren into a spin.

Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing ran seventh ahead of Alexander Rossi’s Arrow McLaren (primary), while Colton Herta had carved through to ninth by lap 5 ahead of Christian Lundgaard’s primary-tired Rahal Letterman Lanigan machine, Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti), Will Power (primary) and Marcus Ericsson. These 13 cars were still covered by 10sec after 10 laps.

Newgarden was the first to commit to a three-stop strategy, ducking out of sixth and into pitlane at the end of Lap 13 to take on a set of alternates, Rossi emulated him next time by, McLaughlin and Power following suit on Lap 15. Newgarden’s early stop paid off, as he jumped ahead of McLaughlin.

Lundgaard passed Herta on Lap 21 as he was still able to lean on his primaries, while the Andretti driver was starting to struggle with his alternates, and a lap later he got past VeeKay too. Herta easing off also allowed teammate Kirkwood and Ericsson to get around him, while Kirkwood passed VeeKay for sixth on Lap 24.

Newgarden as the lead three-stopper had been making brilliant progress since switching to alternates and running without fuel worries. He had moved into 10th by Lap 26, with the struggling VeeKay and Herta among his victims.

The two-stoppers started coming in on Lap 28, Herta being the first taker. Grosjean and Palou went a lap longer even than Dixon, who got in a tight battle with O’Ward on pit exit, the Ganassi driver conceding. In fact, he had to be careful not to let Lundgaard, now on alternates, to take advantage of his extra grip.

Palou emerged from his pitstop ahead of O’Ward but on cold tires he didn’t have a chance of stemming the McLaren driver. And in fact Palou’s colder tires meant he accidentally bottled up Dixon, allowing the opportunistic Lundgaard to lunge inside the six-time champion at the final turn.

Now the three stoppers occupied the top six, Newgarden, McLaughlin, Rossi and Power covered by six seconds, while Rosenqvist was fifth, 2.7s down but on primaries with Malukas sixth but 13sec further back. The two-stoppers came next Grosjean leading O’Ward, Palou, Lundgaard Dixon and Kirkwood.

McLaughlin snatched the lead from Newgarden and Tim Cindric called the erstwhile leader in for scuffed alternates on Lap 37. When Sting Ray Robb stopped his Dale Coyne Racing with a mechanical issue, McLaughlin, Rossi, Power and Rosenqvist were called in before the pitlane closed under caution. Rossi and Rosenqvist took on more primaries, unlike the Penske drivers.

The caution helped the two-stoppers save fuel, but now the fastest three-stoppers were in the same boat as them – i.e. requiring just one more pitstop – and they had alternate tires. Grosjean would take the Lap 43 restart ahead of McLaughlin, O’Ward, Palou, Lundgaard, Dixon, Rossi, Newgarden, Power and Kirkwood.

Lundgaard dived past Palou at Turn 5 to claim fourth, while Newgarden passed Rossi for seventh, and Rosenqvist passed Kirkwood for tenth.

On Lap 44, Newgarden passed Dixon for sixth, and Power deposed Rossi, while up front their teammate McLaughlin tried to pressure Grosjean into a mistake without cooking his tires. By Lap 53, these two were only seven-tenths apart but seven seconds ahead of O’Ward.

Building toward his final stop, Grosjean set his fastest lap times to eke 1.5s over McLaughlin, and now he had 11s on O’Ward. He pitted on Lap 60, as did O’Ward

Newgarden’s Lap 1 damage had been now causing him to bottle up Dixon, Power, Rossi and Rosenqvist, but the dam burst on Lap 61, although Dixon immediately pitted for fresh primaries. Newgarden pitted next time by, while McLaughlin went another lap, and Power delivered the fastest lap of the race

McLaughlin emerged ahead of Grosjean and had to vigorously defend over the next lap. He did it too, but Grosjean pulled off a brilliant over-under move at the penultimate corner to muscle down the inside into the final turn in a brilliant move.

Power stayed out until Lap 66 and his sequence of flying laps while in the lead meant he was able to grab a set of used reds and emerge in third. He was 10s behind the lead battle, but clear of the O’Ward vs Palou battle.

Out front, the battle was fraught, Grosjean leaning on his push-to-pass to fend off McLaughlin. When he ran wide at Turn 5 on Lap 72, he had none left to fend off McLaughlin at the exit. The #3 Penske driver hit his boost on the long drag that followed and passed him clean before Turn 8.

With 10 laps to go, Power had closed his deficit from ten seconds to two seconds but the progress slowed a little thereafter. Still, with six to go it was down to one second, but Power’s used reds were beginning to cry enough.

McLaughlin paid out the line and won by 1.7854s, his fourth career IndyCar victory, and the fourth different winner in the first four races of the season. Power was 1.48s behind Grosjean, but 17s ahead of O’Ward who staved off Palou.

Lundgaard delivered well for the previously struggling RLL, beating Dixon, Rossi and Rosenqvist. Marcus Ericsson completed the top 10 ahead of Ganassi team-mate Marcus Armstrong who clawed his way up from 26th on the grid.

P

Name

Laps

Diff

Pits

P2P

FL

FTime

Led

FSpeed

Engine

Tire

Points

Team

1

Scott McLaughlin

90

LAP 90

3

13

17

1:08.4944

24

120.886

Chevy

P

119

Team Penske

2

Romain Grosjean

90

1.7854

2

0

58

1:08.6827

57

120.554

Honda

P

115

Andretti Autosport

3

Will Power

90

3.2699

3

0

63

1:07.8022

3

122.120

Chevy

A

104

Team Penske

4

Pato O'Ward

90

20.5745

2

94

5

1:09.2399

 

119.584

Chevy

P

127

Arrow McLaren

5

Alex Palou

90

20.9762

2

34

90

1:09.0892

 

119.845

Honda

P

121

Chip Ganassi Racing

6

Christian Lundgaard

90

23.5319

2

74

84

1:09.4275

 

119.261

Honda

P

77

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

7

Scott Dixon

90

24.2769

2

2

64

1:08.7235

 

120.483

Honda

P

98

Chip Ganassi Racing

8

Alexander Rossi

90

25.0582

3

0

17

1:08.5979

 

120.703

Chevy

A

72

Arrow McLaren

9

Felix Rosenqvist

90

25.5107

3

13

65

1:08.4305

 

120.999

Chevy

P

66

Arrow McLaren

10

Marcus Ericsson

90

26.0190

2

3

80

1:08.9389

 

120.106

Honda

P

130

Chip Ganassi Racing

11

Marcus Armstrong

90

28.5527

2

81

82

1:09.1321

 

119.771

Honda

A

62

Chip Ganassi Racing

12

Kyle Kirkwood

90

36.3667

2

41

85

1:08.8680

 

120.230

Honda

P

92

Andretti Autosport

13

Callum Ilott

90

42.4441

3

23

84

1:08.6759

 

120.566

Chevy

A

80

Juncos Hollinger Racing

14

Colton Herta

90

43.7781

2

0

90

1:08.6952

 

120.532

Honda

P

85

Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian

15

Josef Newgarden

90

45.7346

3

14

17

1:08.2443

6

121.329

Chevy

P

105

Team Penske

16

Rinus VeeKay

90

55.1118

2

132

4

1:09.4846

 

119.163

Chevy

P

47

Ed Carpenter Racing

17

Graham Rahal

90

56.4422

3

28

65

1:08.9836

 

120.029

Honda

A

65

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

18

Simon Pagenaud

90

56.7500

2

38

59

1:09.5139

 

119.113

Honda

A

45

Meyer Shank Racing

19

David Malukas

90

57.7650

3

0

29

1:09.2205

 

119.618

Honda

P

74

Dale Coyne Racing with HMD

20

Santino Ferrucci

90

58.5106

3

0

63

1:09.2719

 

119.529

Chevy

P

44

AJ Foyt Enterprises

21

Helio Castroneves

90

60.0847

2

7

65

1:09.4359

 

119.247

Honda

A

45

Meyer Shank Racing

22

Benjamin Pedersen

90

61.3063

3

0

19

1:09.1335

 

119.768

Chevy

P

34

AJ Foyt Enterprises

23

Devlin DeFrancesco

90

63.1924

2

47

70

1:09.7214

 

118.758

Honda

P

33

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

24

Jack Harvey

90

64.5393

2

153

9

1:09.7208

 

118.759

Honda

A

43

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

25

Conor Daly

90

65.6055

3

12

17

1:08.4463

 

120.971

Chevy

P

38

Ed Carpenter Racing

26

Agustin Canapino

90

66.1483

3

16

80

1:09.4031

 

119.303

Chevy

P

47

Juncos Holling Racing

27

Sting Ray Robb

36

Mechanical

2

73

34

1:09.1551

 

119.731

Honda

P

37

Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR

 

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