If you utter the words “Scott” and “New Zealand” in the same sentence when talking about IndyCar drivers, you usually would be referring to six-time champ Scott Dixon.
Increasingly, those words are reserved for Dixon’s fellow Kiwi, Scott McLaughlin, who roared past pole sitter Romain Grosjean with 19 laps to go and then comfortably cruised to a win in Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama race at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.
“I’m glad to get a win here,” McLaughlin said. “It’s been coming. We’ve been close, just haven’t got it the last few rounds, but now we’ve got it.”
In the first three races of 2023 that preceded Sunday’s race, McLaughlin finished 13th in the season opener at St. Petersburg, was sixth at Texas and 10th at Long Beach.
One of the biggest keys for McLaughlin to win and teammate Will Power to finish third was the pre-race decision to have all three Team Penske drivers competing on a strategy of three pit stops in the race, as opposed to most other teams typically going with two stops.
“I call it a happy driver strategy,” McLaughlin said. “I was a lot happier doing that. We had great fuel, went past Grosjean there on a little bit of strategy, advanced past him, and I feel really good about it. I’m real happy to advance to victory lane and be real pumped about it.”
In his third full-time season in IndyCar, McLaughlin has been getting better and stronger seemingly with every race. He earned his first three wins last season—all on road or street courses (St. Petersburg, Mid-Ohio, and Portland), and Sunday’s win puts him in good shape heading to Indianapolis for the month of May, including the GMR Grand Prix on May 13.
“May is going to be an awesome time for us,” McLaughlin said. “I can’t wait. The best race in the world is coming up here soon, so to end the month of April like this and start the month of May on a good note is a really crowning achievement. I’m super pumped.”
Also, as the fourth different winner in the season’s first four races, McLaughlin jumps from 10th to fourth in the standings with the win.
Will Power Becomes a Rally Driver
McLaughlin’s teammate, Will Power, had perhaps the best rally in the race of any driver in the field.
After falling back to 12th, the Australian driver roared back to finish third—and just barely missed overtaking Grosjean for runner-up.
“We’re on another championship run, man,” a confident Power said. “We’re going to keep chipping away at it here. We’re going to get a win here soon. We just have to keep at it and improve qualifying. We’re having a lot of fun, enjoying it a lot.”
It was Power’s first podium of the season, after previous bests of seventh at St. Petersburg and sixth two weeks ago at Long Beach.
He almost caught Grosjean in the closing laps, but just didn’t have enough to ultimately pass his rival.
“The tires had gone too much,” Power said. “I could do the faster lap time, but as soon as I got into his dirty air, I just couldn’t get close enough. I tried everything I could and even made a couple of big mistakes trying that, but just couldn’t get to him.
“I did everything. I tried to save push-to-pass until I got to him, but you get to that air pocket and the tires were gone too much. It wasn’t worth throwing a third place away trying something stupid, so I just took the points.”
Power is the defending two-time IndyCar champion. He’s still in the hunt for his first win of 2023. But Power also knows all too well that he had just one win last season but won the title with uncanny consistency of nine podiums in the 17-race season.
Now with one podium in the bag and 13 races left, Power is ready to do the same this season if it requires such.
“I pushed the whole way. Still fit for an old bloke,” the 42-year-old Power quipped.
Third Penske Teammate Newgarden Gets Bent
Power’s and McLaughlin’s teammate, Josef Newgarden, struggled after contact early in the race. While his car appeared fine cosmetically afterward, he believed something maybe bent on the suspension, costing him an opportunity to be more competitive, having to settle for a 15th-place finish, his second-worst showing this season.
“It sure felt like it,” Newgarden said of the contact causing his problems. “Right after the hit, it felt like I had a right rear going down. I radioed in and there was nothing wrong with the pressure.
“But something else felt very odd… We just couldn’t hang on. It was bad. I just wish we had the car like we had in warm-up, but this was evil, just an evil-handling car. We were literally just holding on.
“What a shame. We were in position and another one gets away. This one got away pretty badly. Pretty demoralizing for the whole group.”
Forget the Rally Hat, Christian Lundgaard Has a Rally ‘Stache
Drivers have plenty of incentive to win a race, what with a big winner’s check, the extra points in the driver standings and lots of happy sponsors and team partners.
But for Christian Lundgaard, he has a bit more added—and a bit unusual—incentive. Lundgaard has grown a mustache that he desperately wants to shave off.
Yet the 21-year-old Danish driver is keeping the razor in his shaving kit until he finally earns his first IndyCar victory. And given how itchy the mustache has become, he has high hopes about the two upcoming races at Indianapolis in May.
“It was a hell of a long race, man,” Lundgaard said of finishing in the same position he started in: sixth. “We had a real good start and then it went a little downhill from that.
“I think all the stops were maybe the best we’ve had all season. We have to take the positives of the weekend: We started sixth and finished sixth.
“We took a big step forward. I knew I had to be aggressive. My dad told me to think about driving and thing about what I enjoyed growing up, and that was to race hard, and I did that today.”
It was Lundgaard’s second top-10 this season and seventh overall since he joined RLL full-time last season.
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver’s best-ever finish to date was a runner-up showing in last May’s Indy Grand Prix.
“Indy is my second home,” he said. “I live in Indy, I’m excited. To race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is always special, so we’ll see if we can get another podium there and maybe (get rid) of the ‘stache.”
NOTES: Sting Ray Robb continues to have a very tough rookie season in IndyCar. The Dale Coyne with Rick Ware Racing driver finished last (27th), recording his third DNF in the first four races Sunday… Monday marks the start of the biggest month of the IndyCar season, with the GMR Grand Prix on May 13 and the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 28, both at the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski
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