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Will Power has blamed Scott McLaughlin for his failure to reach the Firestone Fast Six at the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix.
The Team Penske driver dropped out of qualifying at Barber Motorsports Park at the penultimate stage, ending the session ahead of only Kyle Kirkwood.
McLaughlin, who did progress to qualify fourth, had endured a tough battle in Firestone Fast 12 and came close to disaster on a number of occasions as he kicked up the dust in a style reminiscent of his monstrous 2017 Bathurst pole effort.
But unlike at Bathurst, the New Zealander was not alone on the track and Power believes the dirt and debris made all the difference.
Asked about his own off on his final lap, Power said: “The off – I mean, we were gone.
“Scott went off at Turn 1 on the money lap and just put all that grass on (the track) so I went wide there and lost some time there.
“I was definitely up coming to that.”
But this wasn’t the end of Power’s problems on that lap, with a bizarre steering problem ending any hope of recovering the lost time.
“At Turn 13, the wheel locked and unwound itself (because) there was so much grip in the middle of the corner,” he added.
“I had to get out of the throttle and ran off which screwed the next lap. I’ve never had that. I put a tonne of lock in and it just unwound itself.”
A number of drivers are reported to be planning engine changes for Sunday’s race with pole-sitter Romain Grosjean one of those to already have made the shift to a second powerplant, although the Frenchman’s move was forced by a failure on Friday.
Confirming he will not be running a fresh Chevrolet engine, Power conceded: “We’ve been a tenth-and-a-half down just with engine this weekend just for whatever is going on with it. It’s at the end of its miles.
“I didn’t think we’d make the top six so we’re just going to do our best because a tenth-and-a-half can move you a lot of spots in this series.
“We’ll change it after this race and we’ll be in a good spot again.”
