Penske’s New Zealander claims his maiden oval victory, but points leader Alex Palou suffers a nightmare performance that he brands “unacceptable” in crash-filled contest
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin won a chaotic opening race of IndyCar’s double-header at Iowa Speedway on Saturday night. The New Zealander started second and took advantage of a rapid pitstop to jump into the lead and hold the field at bay to win by 0.4814s over Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward at the 0.894-mile oval. It is the fifth win of McLaughlin’s career, second of the season and first-ever on an oval. “The XPEL Chevy was unreal,” he said.
A phenomenal pitstop by Newgarden saw him jump up four spots into fourth, ahead of Armstrong in fifth. A restart on lap 189 saw McLaughlin get a clean jump, but it was Armstrong’s spot being challenged by VeeKay, who took it and brought Ericsson with him to drop Armstrong two spots to seventh. With 50 laps to go, McLaughlin held a 0.9s lead over O’Ward. The caution flag waved once more with 40 laps to go after the No. 8 CGR Honda of Linus Lundqvist pulled to the apron on the inside of Turn 1.
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