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 10^th 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 26^th 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