December 12, 2024
IndyCar Barber: McLaughlin beats Grosjean for fourth win

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Grosjean led Alex Palou away but Pato O’Ward was inside Palou into Turn 1 – however, 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.

Further back, Scott Dixon got around McLaughlin, as all three Penske drivers were struggling with pace on primary tyres, 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 machine into a spin.

Newgarden was the first to commit to a three-stop strategy, ducking into the pitlane at the end of lap 13 of 90 to take on a set of alternates – and this early stop paid off, as he jumped ahead of McLaughlin, who pitted two laps later.

The two-stoppers started coming in on lap 28, while Grosjean and Palou went a lap longer even than Dixon, who got in a tight battle with O’Ward on the pit exit, the Ganassi driver conceding.

Palou emerged from his stop ahead of O’Ward but, on cold tyres, he didn’t have a chance of stemming the McLaren driver. In fact, Palou’s colder tyres meant he accidentally bottled up team-mate Dixon, allowing the opportunistic Christian Lundgaard to lunge inside the six-time champion at the final turn.

Having cycled to the front, 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 car with a mechanical issue, McLaughlin, Alexander Rossi, Will 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 – requiring just one more pitstop – and they had alternate tyres.

Romain Grosjean, Andretti Autosport Honda

Photo by: Gavin Baker / Motorsport Images

Grosjean took the lap 43 restart ahead of McLaughlin, O’Ward, Palou, Lundgaard and Dixon but Newgarden was on a charge and had soon climbed to sixth.

Up at the front, McLaughlin was pressuring Grosjean as the lead duo pulled clear of the chasing pack.

Grosjean had eked out a 1.5-second lead over McLaughlin by the time he stopped on lap 60. 

But, when McLaughlin pitted three tours later, he emerged ahead of Grosjean and had to vigorously defend over the next lap.

He initially kept the place before Grosjean completed off a brilliant over-under move at the penultimate corner to muscle down the inside into the final turn.

Power, meanwhile, 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 tussle behind.

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 had him clean before Turn 8.

McLaughlin eventually took the win by almost 2s over Grosjean, his fourth IndyCar victory, and the fourth different winner in the first four races of the season. 

With 10 laps to go, Power had closed his deficit to the lead duo to just 2s but the progress slowed a little thereafter and he ultimately had to settle for third. 

Behind O’Ward and Palou, Lundgaard delivered well for the previously struggling RLL to complete the top six, beating Dixon, Rossi and Rosenqvist.

Marcus Ericsson completed the top 10 ahead of Ganassi team-mate Marcus Armstrong, who clawed his way up from 26th on the grid.

Race result:

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

 

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