McLaughlin finished third, edging out McLaren’s Pato O’Ward by 0.0070s and Marcus Armstrong of Meyer Shank Racing by 0.0016s at the yard of bricks.
The Team Penske star finished a meagre 0.420s behind race winner Felix Rosenqvist, who beat McLaughlin’s teammate David Malukas by just 0.023s in the closest-ever Indy 500 finish.
Speaking post-race, McLaughlin reflected on a bittersweet conclusion to the contest.
On one hand, he finished the race he had failed to start a year ago. On the other hand, he had come up agonisingly short.
“It’s Christmas, but not everyone gets a present. That’s the worst part about it because you wake up, you’re like, ‘Yo, we’re going to get presents, it’s going to be sick’, and then only one guy goes home with one,” said McLaughlin.
“That’s what my mum said. It’s kind of a good way to look at it. But at the same time, yeah, everyone here that finishes not first despises today, and it is what it is.
“I mean, you’ve just got to take the learnings, whatever it is, whether you crashed last year or you finished where we finished today: What could you have done differently? What could you have done better? What was out of your control? And just come back stronger.”
McLaughlin commiserated with his offsider Malukas, who was in tears post-race.
Malukas had been a force all day long, often trading the lead with Palou.
The race featured a record-setting high of 70 changes for the lead.
“Personally, I’ve hardly seen the replay, David, but I don’t think you had any fight back at that position,” said McLaughlin of the finish.
“The speed was slow, Felix was going to get a run regardless.
“Yeah, it sucks. I think if the pace is faster, it’s a normal race, I think David squeezes one home.
“But it’s just off a restart.”
McLaughlin had been among the contenders from the outset.
From ninth, he worked his way forward through pit stop strategy and for a spell battled with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou for the lead.
When it became clear that the alternative strategy employed by Rosenqvist was the winning one, McLaughin was by that time more than 20 seconds off the lead.
A late yellow and subsequent red flag brought McLaughlin back into contention, making the most of back-to-back restarts.
“I had a really good restart on the second to last one, and I got to sixth,” said McLaughlin.
“The next restart I had a really good restart. Honestly, I thought my restarts all day were really solid, but I said I was going up to the top no matter what.
“I didn’t really care where I was going. It was just throw it up and hope we come out all right.
“Honestly, I had a pretty good run off [Turn] 2 and everyone was side by side, so I just checked myself up and was going to try and get a big run, and decided to deploy.
“Deployed out the hybrid, helped me get to the line, sort of doing a go-kart, like crash down, trying to get low, and it was amazing. Yeah, it was cool.”
“I probably kept a lid on it a little bit, but the last 365 days have ate at me to come back here,” said McLaughlin.
“And even on the warmup lap, when I took the green I was like, ‘Well, this is good’.
“But it’s been an emotional month, and just nice to come back and execute.
“We weren’t fast enough in traffic. I really struggled to hold with the #12 (Malukas) and the #10 (Palou) there at the last exchanges, so I had to make my hay on the restarts.
“I was just throwing it in and taking whatever gap I could. I really thought I was never coming out, so it was just nice to guess out of there, no crashing, and yeah, go third.”
There will be no time to rest for the IndyCar Series, which resumes on the streets of Detroit in a week.
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