McLaughlin stung for causing crash in Detroit demo derby

Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood claimed victory in the 100-lap contest, surviving a frantic finish to the race and a damaged front wing.

It’s his second win of the season after victory on the streets of Long Beach.

“For some reason, the wing was damaged, but it wasn’t really causing that much of an issue,” Kirkwood said.

“This AWS Honda was on rails all weekend long. There were some challenges out there, that’s for sure.

“We had to pass our way back through a handful of times, and it was definitely not a walk in the park, especially with that front-wing damage at the end.

“We did lose a little bit of performance, but the car actually felt fine.

“Epic pit stops. Epic strategy. We were definitely the fastest.”

From pole position, Colton Herta led the way early. Kirkwood rose to second after a sluggish start, demoting fast starter Christin Lundgaard.

Pit stops began in earnest early. By Lap 13, most of the front-runners had switched from the soft compound tyre to the hard compound.

In the middle of that sequence, the caution flew for Felix Rosenqvist who backed his Meyer Shank Racing car into the tyre barrier.

Under yellow, Scott McLaughlin led the way. However, he pitted behind the Safety Car and fell to 14th. Nevertheless, he still led the group of cars that had pitted ahead of Kirkwood, Will Power, and Herta.

On the restart, McLaughlin threw away his advantage when he rear-ended McLaren’s Nolan Siegel into a spin.

For the contact, the Team Penske driver was given a drive-through penalty and fell to the back of the lead lap.

McLaughlin went on to recover to 12th by the chequered flag.

On Lap 19, the caution came out again when Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Devlin DeFrancesco lost a rear wheel.

The race enjoyed a lull of chaos once the race restarted and by Lap 40, those who opted to run long on the first set of hard tyres had finally pitted. That handed Kirkwood the lead ahead of Power, Herta, Palou, and David Malukas.

Kirkwood’s advantage grew to 2.4s before the second round of pit stops with 50 laps to go. Power and Palou were among the first to stop before Kirkwood responded on Lap 51.

Power began to reel Kirkwood in before the yellow flew on Lap 67 when Prema’s Callum Ilott crashed.

That opened the window for the final round of pit stops, led by Kirkwood.

Santino Ferrucci inherited the lead of the race on an alternative strategy ahead of Kyffin Simpson and Marcus Armstrong. Kirkwood was fourth ahead of Power.

The race resumed on Lap 73 but it wasn’t long before the yellow flew again, this time for Palou who piled into the tyre barrier thanks to Malukas, who rear-ended the #10 Honda.

Malukas was penalised and wound up finishing 14th.

Ferrucci led the field ot green on Lap 77. Behind him, Kirkwood made immediate headway and by Lap 79 passed Ferrucci for the lead at Turn 1.

Kirkwood stretched his legs out to a handy advantage while Power made headway to second.

With 17 laps to go, the race was brought to a halt when the suspension of Louis Foster’s car snapped and sent him hurtling out of control at top speed into Turn 1.

With nowhere to go, Foster ploughed into the back of Rosenqvist. The Brit flew through the run-off and into the tyres while the Swede slammed into the Turn 1 wall.

The race was briefly red-flagged. Foster escaped injury but Rosenqvist was sent for further checks.

“The suspension just killed on us when I hit the brakes,” Foster said.

“I’ve never seen that happen before. I don’t know how the heck that happens. This track’s just ridiculously bumpy. That has to be something to do with it, because that’s so uncommon.

“I don’t have a lot of words right now. Still trying to figure out in my head what happened, chat to the boys and see. Super disappointing. That’s about it.”

Power didn’t have enough speed to go with Kirkwood on the restart with 12 laps to go. The Andretti driver immediately got out to a two-second lead, leaving the Australian to battle over second with Ferrucci and Herta.

Ferrucci got by into Turn 1 with 10 laps to go and then Herta got by shortly thereafter.

All told, Kirkwood led Ferrucci to the chequered flag by 3.5s while Herta was 4.9s behind at the start-finish line.

Power was fourth ahead of Simpson who recorded a career-best fifth place finish.

Runner-up Ferrucci, who led eight laps, was the surprise packet of the race from 21st on the grid.

“The stand was amazing,” Ferrucci said, hailing his strategists and engineers.

“Perfect strategy. Obviously got lucky with that yellow (on Lap 67), and man, I don’t think I”ve ever been so happy to see a red flag. I was really struggling.

“I don’t know what I did with the tyres, but I couldn’t get them to come back to life. Kyle was so fast today. Congratulations to him and his team on this win.”

IndyCar takes a two-week break before returning at Gateway on June 16 for the second oval race of the season.

Results: IndyCar Series Detroit Grand Prix