Scott McLaughlin believes a two-hour rain delay may have been decisive in him missing out on victory in the Gateway IndyCar race.
The Team Penske driver finished third, having led when a red flag was waved with 43 laps to go due to rain, just as the sun was starting to set.
The two-hour-plus halt in proceedings pushed the final 43 laps firmly into night-time conditions, with McLaughlin passed by team-mate Josef Newgarden on the restart lap.
Then, as he took the white flag, charging Dale Coyne Racing rookie David Malukas ranged up on his outside and got the job done, relegating the #3 Chevrolet to the bottom step of the podium after it had led for a total of 12 laps.
According to McLaughlin, his car was simply not good enough under lights.
“I think my car just wasn’t quick enough once the sun went down,” he said.
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“Unfortunately, if we just kept going green, I think it would have been different things if it hadn’t have rained.”
Elaborating on that, the New Zealander said, “I think our car was very good in the afternoon, when the sun was still out.
“Once the sun went away, I lost my balance a little bit just in that last stint; just didn’t quite have what Josef and, for sure, David had.
“Obviously me and Josef pulled away [from the field after the restart], but I sort of knew I didn’t have much, midway through that stint.
“Then it started building loose, which was making it very hard to get runs off similar to what I had in the daylight.
“On that second-last lap, just I got a little bit loose in Turn 3, 4 [and] Dave got a good run.
“I could see what he was doing, he was trying to set it up but I couldn’t really get out wide just because the [lack of] confidence I had in the rear of the car, but he did a phenomenal job.”
Even so, McLaughlin felt that he might have been able to hold on for the win had Newgarden not been able to tow off him so effectively when they ran down the back straight on Lap 225.
“The slipstream effect here, and when you can get a run and stuff, it works pretty good,” he explained.
“No, not surprised [Newgarden was able to pass so easily], but I did all I could to try and break away as much as I could.
“I threw it into [Turn] 1 pretty hard and I think if we had got through that Turn 3, maybe I could have held him off, but he was quick”
The podium is the three-time Supercars champion’s sixth this season, his second full campaign in IndyCar, and half of those have come in the relatively unfamiliar discipline of oval racing.
Still, he admitted, “I’m absolutely disappointed.
“I feel like we were really solid there today in the daylight but, yeah, sort of lost it there at the end.”
McLaughlin sits sixth on the table with two races to go in 2022, 54 points behind series-leading team-mate Will Power and 11 adrift of 2021 champion Alex Palou.
Portland is next up on September 2-4 (local time), with that race streamed live and ad-free on Stan Sport.
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