After only a week the IndyCar drivers have been back in action again, but this weekend in Alabama for the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix. After Scott Dixon won last weekend, and Josef Newgarden was disqualified from his race win at the start of the season, the veteran New Zealander finds himself on top of the Championship standings.
Scott McLaughlin who has also been affected by penalties in the last week started on pole today, a drastically different position than his 29th position in the Championship.
McLaughlin converted his pole advantage into a race win for Team Penske. In the remaining podium positions, it was Will Power and Linus Lundqvist in second and third place.
Felix Rosenqvist and Alex Palou were in fourth and fifth place. Then it was Christian Lundgaard, Santino Ferrucci, Colton Herta, Marcus Armstrong and Kyle Kirkwood who rounded out the top ten in Alabama.
As the lights went out it was Scott McLaughlin who got the jump on the rest of the field. On the first lap, Pato O’Ward spun off the track and ended up in the gravel after avoiding contact with Newgarden.
Lap six and the first caution of the race as Pietro Fittipaldi found his way into the wall after getting taken out by O’Ward. McLaughlin lost out due to this as the massive gap that he had built was cut right down. Because of his involvement in the crash with Fittipaldi, O’Ward was given a drive-through penalty.
McLaughlin kept level-headed at the restart kept hold of first place and continued to lead in the early stages of the race. But further down in ninth place, Scott Dixon made a massive error as he ran off the track and dropped back to 18th place on lap 20.
Will Power then proceeded to make a mistake from second place on lap 24 as he ran off the track, but only dropped back to third place. The drama continued as the next victim of being pushed off track was former Championship leader Josef Newgarden.
After most drivers entered the pits, it was Ferrucci who took the lead of the race after he was on an alternative strategy.
Order resumed as McLaughlin found his way back to the lead, with Power just behind him in second place. Josef Newgarden found himself down at the back of the pack as he was battling for 20th place.
Five laps to go and a late caution comes out to crush McLaughlin’s lead, which gives Alex Palou a chance to join Power in chasing down the leader.
With two laps to go the track returned green and McLaughlin got off to a great start on the restart and shot off…
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