Scott McLaughlin was faster than race winner Kyle Kirkwood but finished just 0.7633s short of claiming his second win of the 2023 IndyCar Series season in Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix.
Much like 2022, pole-sitter McLaughlin had a late race restart to attack the race leader, but Kirkwood pulled away to a gap of just over two and a half seconds midway through Lap 78. Despite running consecutive laps that were quite a bit faster than the Floridian, McLaughlin could not overcome the deficit.
The Printer Wagon was jammed in second place, unable to advance any further.
“I gave it my all, man,” McLaughlin said on pit road. “Tried my hardest, but congrats to Kyle and his team, just an unreal job. Days like today, I should’ve worn the cool suit, but I ate too many pies so it’s a bit heavy for me. I’m really proud of everyone, another top three, good points, bummed we didn’t get the win, but you know we weren’t best on the day, Kyle was and props to him.”
After race control waved off the start of the race and ran the first lap under yellow, McLaughlin led the race until his first pit stop on Lap 25.
There was a small strategy concern as the 2019 Bathurst 1000 winner was on the softer, green-sidewall alternate compound tires in the early portion of the race and McLaughlin’s gap to the rest of the field vanished after the Lap 13 caution for David Malukas’s damaged car in the Turn 9 runoff.
McLaughlin did not pit under the early full course yellow, much like the majority of the field. Alex Palou did hit pit road from fourth place, banking on more full course yellows like the last two years.
Palou’s gamble resulted in him running slower to save more fuel, with McLaughlin running fourth behind Palou, Kirkwood and Romain Grosjean. The three-time Supercars champion moved up to third when Palou pitted on Lap 45 and then gained second place from Grosjean on Lap 49.
McLaughlin regained the lead for one lap on Lap 51 before pitting for the final time one lap later. After the remaining leaders made their final pit stops, McLaughlin cycled out in second place, remaining consistently between two and three seconds behind Kirkwood as the race continued under green.
The race’s next full course yellow came out after Linus Lundqvist hit the wall at the exit of Turn 11 in the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda on Lap 71.
After a multi-car incident on the ensuing restart involving Colton Herta, Felix Rosenqvist, Agustin Canapino and Benjamin Pedersen, race control threw a red flag to give the track crew enough time to clean the accident scene and to ensure a green flag finish.
On the final restart, McLaughlin did not have his rear tires up to operating temperature for a good restart, allowing Kirkwood to escape off in the distance.
“I was trying to do my best to hunt him down at the end,” McLaughlin said in the post-race press conference.
“I just had a poor restart. […]. So annoying. I don’t know what happened. Like I didn’t change my procedure. I’m normally pretty good on restarts, but I was terrible.
“Yeah, got to do a little bit of study on that. I think if I was a little bit closer, I might have been able to maybe throw a little dive bomb at him. Unfortunately couldn’t.”
McLaughlin closed in the final three laps, but the damage was already done. McLaughlin clawed back 1.4s in the last two laps but Kirkwood was too far ahead at the end.
“I felt really good. I’m really proud of everyone,” McLaughlin said. “Thankful for all the support of the Thirsty 3s, the pit stops today were unreal and just really proud of the effort. Gonna have a few waters and then maybe a few beers, yeah.”
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