Scott McLaughlin’s journey in the Grand Prix of Monterey started in the Turn 2 gravel trap, continued with two penalties from race control and ended with a runner-up finish at Laguna Seca to end the 2023 IndyCar Series season.
McLaughlin started second in the 27-car field but had trouble almost immediately when Christian Lundgaard slid into the #3 Team Penske Chevrolet as the field headed to Turn 2. While the car headed straight for the gravel trap outside the corner, McLaughlin avoided the tyre barrier outside the gravel and navigated back to the racing surface.
The 2019 Bathurst 1000 winner was now 19th and took advantage of the early yellow to pit and move to the black sidewall primary tyre compound after starting on a new set of the red alternate tyres.
In two green flag laps, McLaughlin moved up to 17th before the race’s second full course yellow after Josef Newgarden spun at Turn 4. After the restart, the 2021 Indianapolis 500 rookie of the year gained another five positions before pitting on Lap 23.
Several drivers pitted a handful of laps later and race control then called another Caution period, this time for Marcus Ericsson’s stalled car at the exit of Turn 2 following contact with pole-sitter Felix Rosenqvist. Several drivers had to pit under yellow, vaulting McLaughlin to eighth place.
The restart at the end of Lap 36 nearly undid all of McLaughlin’s hard work. After several cars had contact in the final corner, Santino Ferrucci let off of the accelerator while running behind Marcus Armstrong into the Turn 1 kink. McLaughlin had nowhere to go, hitting the No. 14 A. J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet and requiring Ferrucci to perform an incredible feat of driving to keep the car from spinning. The contact damaged McLaughlin’s front wing assembly, requiring a pit stop to change the compromised pieces.
“I think I hit everything but the Pace Car today. Certainly one of those crazy days, peak IndyCar days,” McLaughlin said of the race’s chaos.
Race control assessed McLaughlin an avoidable contact penalty so he had to drop to the rear of the field, but there was still the matter of a damaged front wing assembly to replace. Because McLaughlin stopped under yellow so his crew could replace the front wing after already moving to the back of the field, IndyCar assessed McLaughlin a drive-through penalty because the service was not under green flag running.
IndyCar also assessed the same penalty to Will Power who required a new front wing because of his contact with Benjamin Pedersen that helped cause the Caution.
McLaughlin was back in 18th after serving his drive-through penalty but moved up to 12th after other drivers made their next scheduled pit stops. That soon became eighth place when four drivers pitted under the yellow for David Malukas’s stalled car at Turn 3 after contact with Devlin DeFrancesco.
McLaughlin used the next full course yellow for separate incidents at Turn 11 involving Ferrucci and Tom Blomqvist to make his final pit stop on Lap 64 with eventual race winner Scott Dixon and several other drivers.
It was time for McLaughlin to practice his crash avoidance skills.
Coming to the green flag at the end of Lap 66, Pedersen hit the left rear corner of Armstrong’s car, tipping the #11 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda into a spin at Turn 11. As Christian Lundgaard had sharp oversteer to avoid Armstrong and Helio Castroneves went to the far outside of everybody to avoid all contact, McLaughlin went through the middle to move from 14th to 11th.
That soon became ninth place after Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi pitted from their top five positions under yellow. McLaughlin then turned in his lap of the race after the restart at the end of Lap 72.
Colton Herta fell victim to McLaughlin’s advances as the Kiwi took eighth on the way to Turn 2. Eighth became seventh heading to Turn 3 after Augstin Canapino had lost momentum following contact with Callum Ilott at Turn 2. Ilott went by DeFrancesco for fourth place heading to Turn 5 and Alex Palou tried to follow the British racer through.
While Palou went by the ailing DeFrancesco, the Spaniard left enough room on the inside to allow McLaughlin to turn seventh place into fifth place as he overtook Palou and DeFrancesco in one move at the apex of Turn 5. Damage to the rear of Ilott’s car following the collision with Canapino slowed the #77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, allowing McLaughlin through to fourth place before approaching the Corkscrew at the top of the circuit.
“I had one really good restart where I picked off sort of six or seven cars,” McLaughlin said in the post-race press conference. “I was just hauling. So much fun.”
When race leader Romain Grosjean and second place Pato O’Ward pitted under the race’s final Caution period a few laps later, that moved McLaughlin up to second place behind Dixon. Despite the penalties and the contact, McLaughlin was now one car away from claiming the lead of the race and his second victory of the 2023 IndyCar season.
It just wasn’t meant to be as Dixon finished 7.318s ahead of McLaughlin.
“Thought I maybe might be able to have a crack at Scottie at the end,” McLaughlin said. “He was just too fast. I knew if I finished second, I was most likely going to be top three in the championship. That ultimately was my goal coming into this weekend. Yeah, super pumped. Things that didn’t go my way, things I probably shouldn’t have done either, but we just kept our heads down and kept working. Yeah, took the fuel when we needed, pitted when we needed to. Just slightly came back through.”
McLaughlin’s race was a true rollercoaster through the field, one that brought back some memories of a particular Supercars championship-deciding race at Newcastle.
“It was probably the most craziest race I’ve ever had in my career just from an up-and-down perspective,” McLaughlin said. “It probably takes me back to the year I lost the Supercars championship for the first time [in 2017]. Up and down, penalties, thing you could avoid and couldn’t avoid. It was just nuts.”
Because of the result, McLaughlin finished third in the IndyCar points standings, four points ahead of O’Ward in fourth and nine points ahead of Newgarden in fifth. That put McLaughlin as the highest-placed Team Penske driver and the highest-placed Chevrolet driver in IndyCar points.
“For me it’s just a pride thing,” McLaughlin said of finishing third in points. “More importantly, we wanted to be the top Chevy team, beat McLaren, and we did that. I wanted to beat my team-mates. Ultimately ticked both those goals.
“I talk about beating our team-mates. We had a serious good camaraderie between the three of us. It’s very competitive. It gets tense at times. That’s what you want in a relationship. I think we all push each other to new levels. To beat those two is a proud moment.”
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