From V8 Supercars to V6 superstar
Scott Mclaughlin put in a consummate performance at the start of just his second season since emerging from Australian tin-tops, but he had to work hard for it at the end
The pressure was intense on Scott Mclaughlin. There were two laps to go. Ahead of his Chevrolet-powered Team Penske car was a backmarker, a rookie about whom he knew very little in terms of track ethics or driving style. Behind him – right behind him – was the reigning Indycar champion, whose skills have rapidly been recognised by all in the sport.
Alex Palou is a man who’s extremely fast, who makes very few mistakes, but who was keen to make up for a big error the day before in second practice. He had clipped the apex wall at Turn 9 and had speared into the concrete on the outside, almost head-on. He had been unhurt but he was mortified at the work he had given both his Chip Ganassi Racing crew and the mechanics from his team-mates’ cars. Heck, Ganassi’s Honda-engined machines had looked off the pace in first practice, the highest only 15th; the last thing they needed was this.
Yet, by the afternoon, they had given Palou a car that was fast enough for him to claim 10th on the grid, only a couple of tenths slower than his six-time champion team-mate Scott Dixon in seventh and one-tenth behind another team-mate, ex-f1 driver Marcus Ericsson. Then, in the Sunday morning warm-up, Palou was third; add St Pete 2022 to the long list of events over the past 15 years where Ganassi proves itself the Indycar team most able to turn its fortunes around in the space of a weekend.
Suitably encouraged, right from the start of the race Palou had been a man on a mission, moving up to eighth, which became seventh on lap 11 when Dixon ahead of him pitted for the first of three pitstops – which ultimately proved to be the wrong strategy, and one that hampered other potential frontrunners. Then he was up to sixth after Rinus Veekay (Ed Carpenter Racing) cooked his softer alternate Firestone rubber, on which all top 10 runners bar
Will Power had started. The Dutchman began to fall down the order and eventually pitted on lap 20 – exceedingly early for a two-stop strategy in a 100-lap race.
Then debutant David Malukas shunted his Dale Coyne Racing car on lap 24, bringing out the full-course caution. All the two-stoppers were serviced once the
pitlane opened, cursing that they would temporarily tumble behind the threestoppers who had pitted already. One such was first-time polesitter Mclaughlin, who had led impeccably throughout thus far. He had staved off Colton Herta at the first corner, since fellow front-row starter and Penske team-mate Power had spun his hard primaries on the runway paint as he hit the throttle at the drop of the green and dropped to fourth behind Herta and Veekay.
Yet Power still made his primary-first policy pay off nicely. He went past Veekay into third on lap 16, four laps later he deposed the fading Andretti Autosport car of Herta, and then he started closing the six-second gap to Mclaughlin at the rate of over 1s per lap. It was fairly obvious what was going to happen, long before their planned first pitstops, Power hoping to run as late as lap 36 in order to keep his red-tyred stint as short as possible on a day when the softer rubber was looking somewhat fragile.
If the yellow ruined that plan, so too it hurt Mclaughlin, for under caution his team-mate was able to close right up behind him, and he only just emerged from the pitlane ahead of his fellow Antipodean, although they were now down in 12th and 13th. But the Ganassi squad had jumped Palou out ahead of Herta, and this would prove crucial. Power, rather than taking advantage of the short-term grip advantage proffered by his new set of alternate tyres, when those around him had done the opposite by switching from reds to blacks, now knew he needed them to last for longer than he and race engineer Dave Faustino had planned. His lack of momentum on turn exits allowed Palou to slice past him the lap after the restart and become Mclaughlin’s main challenger, and he would remain so for the rest of the race. Four laps after that, Herta too mugged Power to gain a net third.
As the three-stoppers – predictably led by Dixon – peeled off for their second service over the next dozen or so laps, so Mclaughlin, Palou, Herta, Power and the Rahal Letterman Lanigan cars of Graham Rahal and rookie Christian Lundgaard moved up the order. But, when Dixon pitted, it was Veekay who moved into the lead, still trying to make that two-stopper work despite pitting as early as lap 20. It appeared that he would need another caution period of at least four laps in order to complete the job, especially when he made his second stop with 38 laps still to go…
But Veekay’s presence in the pitlane on lap 62 made his rivals nervous, for it put them in the so-called danger zone: in the event of another yellow, the ECR driver would not only be leading the two-stoppers, but the fuel-consumption issues caused by an early second stop would be negated. He’d be able to fight them.
Herta therefore pitted next time by, a lap after that Mclaughlin stopped too, while Palou, Rahal and Lundgaard came in on the next tour. Power risked staying out one lap longer but, while he emerged ahead of
Herta, who had been held up by three
stopping Simon Pagenaud, he was now behind not only Mclaughlin and Palou but also Veekay.
Meanwhile Dixon led from Pato O’ward. The Arrow Mclaren SP team had looked off the ultimate pace all weekend, although the Mexican ace was sure he could have made it to Q2 had he not broken a left-rear toe-link against the wall in his Q1 segment. A brilliant opening lap vaulted O’ward from 16th to ninth, but committing to a threestop strategy on a day when there was just one caution period was his – and others’ – undoing. When Dalton Kellett spun, O’ward was called to the pits for the final time in anticipation of a full-course caution, but Kellett was able to get going and limp to the pits to retire. Ganassi held firm until lap 79 before calling Dixon in; he rejoined eighth.
Now Mclaughlin was back in the lead again with 20 laps to go, chased by Palou, the
“After some difficult races in his rookie season, this was Mclaughlin’s moment of truth”
pair of them being closed on by Power, who had passed Veekay a couple of laps earlier as the ECR driver nervously kept an eye on his fuel-mileage number. Mclaughlin got his lead out to 3s while Palou played it cautious, a telemetry failure having left the #10 crew bereft of the requisite information to tell him what fuel mileage he had to hit. That allowed Power to close a 4.5s deficit to under 3s.
Then with 13 to go, Mclaughlin got held up by Palou’s team-mate Jimmie Johnson, allowing the Spaniard to close to within 0.7s of the leader. The Penske sophomore kept his cool, and by lap 94 had his lead back out to over 1s. But then Mclaughlin lost time, and Palou was only 0.5s behind him…
Up ahead was Andretti Autosport rookie Devlin Defrancesco and, as Mclaughlin drew close, so he could see Palou in his mirrors. He didn’t want to risk passing Defrancesco, possibly dirtying his tyres by running offline, but neither could he dawdle indefinitely at Defrancesco’s pace when he had Palou breathing down his neck…
After some difficult races – particularly on street courses – in his rookie season, this was Mclaughlin’s moment of truth. He’s gelled well with Penske engineer Ben Bretzman, who formerly filled the same role with the now-departed Pagenaud, and the Kiwi’s confidence had rocketed after heading second practice and beating nine-time St Pete polesitting team-mate Power to P1 on the grid. But he had to keep his nerve now.
In the end, Mclaughlin called on his experience from leading Supercars races to keep his hands and feet doing what his brain told him was feasible. He placed his car in just the right spots to deter a passing attempt from behind, and he took the chequered flag half a second ahead of Palou.
Just under 2s behind them, Power was left in the mental dilemma of being pleased to score a podium in the season-opener, but cursing the timing of the first yellow flag – and the fact that the pits close under caution – and infuriated by Indycar’s reluctance to adjust its blue-flag rule. Backmarkers are permitted to not only fight to stay on the lead lap but also not have to cede a place to the frontrunners until a lap down to the whole field. Power spent two laps trying to get around Johnson, ending his final hopes of joining the Mclaughlin-palou battle.
Veekay’s attempts to be parsimonious with his fuel left him unable to fend off not only Herta but also Herta’s team-mate Romain Grosjean, who thus claimed fifth in his first race for Andretti Autosport. It had been an eventful weekend for the ex-f1 driver, who led opening practice but then rammed into the back of Takuma Sato’s Dale Coyne Racing car in the second session, and had brushes with his semi-team-mates Pagenaud and Helio Castroneves of Meyer Shank Racing on at least three occasions.
But Grosjean redeemed himself in the race, starting and finishing fifth, able to repel an attack from the fresher-tyred Dixon in the closing 20 laps before passing Veekay and Rahal three laps from the end.
Grosjean’s practice-assault victim Sato applied Coyne’s two-stop strategy well.
The shunt meant that he never got to try Firestone’s new, stickier reds before qualifying and, with only one day of off-season testing with his new team,
he was naturally not filled with confidence when he qualified 22nd. But the two-time Indy 500 winner kept his nose clean all day and climbed to 10th by the end.
Less than a second ahead of him, Ericsson was left rueing what might have been, having adopted the correct (as it transpired) two-stop strategy. At his first stop, he was released by his Ganassi crew just as Rahal and Grosjean were coming past almost abreast in the pitlane. Race Control elected to penalise the Swede, so he made the restart from the back of the field, and spent the remainder of the race playing catch-up.
In his first Indycar race for MSR, Pagenaud was left a disappointed 15th. He had qualified a fine sixth but, after losing several places at the start, the team’s adoption of a three-stop strategy never worked out. The same could be said of two-time St Pete winner Josef Newgarden, who had started ninth, showed decent pace in the race, but could salvage only 16th.