McLaughlin Holds Off Palou For Maiden IndyCar Win
Calum Gill 19:58 27/02/2022
Scott McLaughlin earned his first IndyCar victory by fending off late pressure from defending champion Álex Palou in the St Petersburg 2022 season-opener.
Team Penske’s Supercars convert McLaughlin stormed to his first IndyCar pole in qualifying with a sensational lap despite having next to no single-seater street racing experience prior to his IndyCar switch at the end of 2020. He led the early stages of the race before series rookie David Malukas (Dale Coyne Racing) hit the wall at Turn 3 and caused the first caution period of the season. Race leader McLaughlin pitted along with every driver yet to pit - bar Alexander Rossi - and he fell to 13th place behind 11 drivers who already stopped and new race leader Rossi. Rather than charging past all those who had already pit, McLaughlin conserved his fuel, ensuring he could make his two-stop strategy work and he slowed cycled his way back to the lead as other drivers made their pitstops.
When those drivers on the alternative three-stop strategy - led by six-time champion Scott Dixon - made their final pitstops, McLaughlin retook the lead and had Palou as his closest competition, a couple of seconds adrift. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Palou, who crashed in practice and qualified 10th behind two of his team-mates, closed to within a second of McLaughlin but couldn’t make a serious attempt at the lead. He eventually finished just 0.510 seconds behind first-time IndyCar winner McLaughlin.
Front row starter Will Power lost ground at the beginning of the race as he was the only driver in the top 10 to start on the harder black tyres. He recovered by the time of the caution, but then lost out to Palou shortly after the restart. Power ended up taking the final spot on the podium, only 2.467 seconds adrift of his race-winning team-mate McLaughlin. Andretti’s Colton Herta made a late-race move on Rinus VeeKay for fourth place and as Graham Rahal attempted to follow him through, he connected with VeeKay and Romain Grosjean was able to overtake them both. Grosjean claimed fifth place on his debut for Andretti, having survived a knock to his front wing on the opening lap in contact with Power. VeeKay denied Rahal sixth place, while Dixon finished eighth.
Dixon’s Ganassi team-mate Marcus Ericsson, who was sent to the back of the field while under caution for causing a collision in a bizarre pitlane incident with Rahal and Grosjean, finished ninth. Takuma Sato was 10th on his debut for Dale Coyne Racing while Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard dropped from ninth to 11th in the final four laps. Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward was just a few seconds shy of Dixon when they made their second pitstops, but he suffered a slow pitstop and came out in traffic, meaning he ended up 12th at the chequered flag.
The top 15 was rounded out by Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s new signing Jack Harvey and Meyer Shank Racing pair Hélio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud. Penske’s Josef Newgarden struggled to 16th ahead of McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist, with Kyle Kirkwood (Foyt) 18th, Callum Ilott (Juncos Hollinger) 19th and brief race leader Rossi 20th. Conor Daly was 21st for Ed Carpenter Racing, ahead of debutant Devlin DeFrancesco of Andretti. Jimmie Johnson (Ganassi) finished a lap down, with Tatiana Calderón coming home three laps down on debut for A. J. Foyt Enterprises. Her teammate Dalton Kellett was the only other non-finisher alongside Malukas.
