Scott McLaughlin Wins St Petersburg for First Career Victory
All of the hype surrounding the 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season has been the depth of talent. With 26 full-time cars on the grid, the season-opening race at St Petersburg definitely delivered. With former champions, race winners, and a crop of elite rookie talent, Scott McLaughlin fought and earned his first career victory.
Yesterday McLaughlin out dueled his teammate and qualifying legend Will Power for pole position. Today, he followed that up by fending off a fierce attack from reigning series champion Alex Palou in the closing laps of the race. The margin of victory for McLaughlin was just 0.509 seconds. The Team Penske driver put the No. 3 Chevrolet back in victory lane for the first time since Helio Castroneves won the 2017 race at Iowa.
Palou made a hard charge late in the race, but had to settle for a runner-up finish after starting in 10th position. He was in the middle of the Penske sandwich as Power joined them on the podium. This is the 223rd career IndyCar win for Roger Penske's team.
McLaughlin led 49 of the 100 laps, and was out of breath when he got out of his car. "Oh my God! Thank you to Roger Penske,” he said. “What a day. I’m out of breath. We did it. I can’t believe it.”
Scott's new race engineer Ben Bretzman was confident in his driver's ability. “He’s the real deal. Like we figured out last year, you saw it. There’s a reason he won all those races down in Australia. He’s really freaking good. I’m super proud of the guy, and our whole team to get him this far in such a short period of time. What impresses me the most he did it with no mistakes. What a debut!"
Palou kept fans glued to the television as the two battled for the win in the closing laps. “He did an amazing job,” Palou said of McLaughlin. “I’m super happy he got his first win. If we look at the result we got today and how we started the weekend, I’m really happy. I don’t think we had the pace Scott had, so if this is one of our worst races, I’ll be really pleased.”
Two Andretti Autosport drivers rounded out the top five. Colton Herta came into the race as the most recent St Petersburg race winner and came home in 4th place. Romain Grosjean earned a top-five result in his first start with the team after taking over the No. 28 DHL Honda.
Rinus VeeKay led 13 laps and was trying to stretch his fuel to the end of the race but had to conserve to get to the finish line. The Ed Carpenter Racing driver still finished 6th and has a solid start to his season after a disappointing second half of 2021. Graham Rahal improved four spots to finish 7th on Sunday, leading the way for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team.
Scott Dixon led this race for the first time since 2012 but he was on the wrong end of the strategy game. The Ganassi driver finished 8th but remains winless on the streets of St Petersburg. His teammate Marcus Ericsson finished just behind him, which was a strong comeback after being penalized for making contact on pit road during his first stop.
The biggest mover of the race was Takuma Sato, who gained 12 positions in the race and delivered a top-ten finish for his Dale Coyne Racing team. The driver of the No. 51 car finished just ahead of rookie Christian Lundgaard. The RLL Racing driver made it eight Honda-powered cars that finished in the top 11 on Sunday.
Pato O'Ward had to start back in 16th after a mistake in qualifying on Saturday. He made up several positions in the first two laps of the race, with a couple of brave moves around the 1.8-mile street circuit. He was another driver that was stuck on the three-stop strategy, and could only manage a 12th place finish.
It was a rough day for the Meyer Shank Racing duo of Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud. They finished 14th and 15th respectively, which was somewhat of a surprise. Although it was with a different team, Helio's record at this track has been outstanding. The four-time Indy 500 winner had finished inside the top-six in 10 of his 12 starts here before today. Pagenaud qualified sixth on Saturday but quickly dropped to the rear of the field and was never able to find his way back to the front.
Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi are two championship contenders that started the season on a sour note for the second year in a row. Newgarden finished 16th on his three-stop strategy and Rossi led 10 laps by staying out after the early caution flag, but finished 20th and was never a threat to win the race. Both will be chomping at the bit to get back on track but they will have to wait a few weeks before their next opportunity.
There is more good news for McLaughlin and the Penske team in terms of the bigger picture. The driver that has won the season-opening race has gone on to win the championship in each of the last three seasons. The pressure is on, and the competition will be fierce, but the three-time Supercars champion has just proven that he can handle both.
With the opening round of the season officially in the books, the series will have a few weeks off before the next event. The XPEL 375 at Texas Motor Speedway on March 20 gets underway at 12:30 PM ET on NBC.
