There were a lot of deeply endearing things about rookie David Malukas’s first IndyCar Series podium at Gateway.
The admission that he dropped in behind third-placed Scott McLaughlin on the slowing-down lap because he had no idea where podium finishers were supposed to go at the end of the race.
The fact the 20-year-old was given grape juice, not champagne, for the podium because he’s still below America’s legal drinking age.
His description of how over-awed he was when he realised he was chasing two Penske drivers for the race lead: “‘Oh, my God, they’re Penskes. I’m going behind Penskes right now. This is crazy.’
“I was trying so hard to not get nervous. I mean, I was nervous, but I was trying so hard not to get overexcited and do something stupid.
“It’s definitely intimidating when there’s two Penskes in front of you.”
Malukas added that he usually lets Penske drivers straight past in practice sessions, too.
He may not have been convinced he really belonged in that company.
But winner Josef Newgarden, who beat Malukas’s Dale Coyne Racing with HMD car by just four tenths of a second, and McLaughlin, who Malukas overtook for second on the last lap, had a pretty clear message for him.
Stop being so damn deferential. You can beat us.
“He did a phenomenal job. He’s been doing an amazing job all year,” said McLaughlin.
“First podium in IndyCar is pretty hard to come by, especially on a short oval.
“I went low line against Dave thinking ‘he’s a rookie, he might not, he might not [pass around the outside]’.
“Then he did. ‘Oh, well, I was wrong. He went around the outside’.”
RETWEET to congratulate @malukasdavid!
He passed Scott McLaughlin on the final lap to score a runner-up finish and his first podium in the NTT @INDYCAR SERIES. pic.twitter.com/1unNyuh2Hi
— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) August 21, 2022
Turning to Malukas, McLaughlin added: “Credit to you. It was awesome. That’s what oval racing is all about.
“I left him enough room, he left me enough room, we got through there two-by-two. It was a stellar pass.”
Newgarden went further still. The double champion didn’t quite invite Malukas to wheel-bang him out of the way, but urged him to race others as hard as they race him.
“I would give Malukas a lot of respect,” said Newgarden. “He’s probably been one of the cleanest rookies I’ve ever seen.
“He’s been almost too respectful. They talk about that on the [TV] broadcast. It’s funny to watch back.
“It is true that if you’re too respectful you can get run over in this series.
“I said that in Nashville [during the spat with Romain Grosjean]. I didn’t say it in joking fashion. That’s how people race these days.”
Malukas had his own Nashville clash. He’d run as high as third in what was up to then his strongest IndyCar race day and was holding seventh when his 2021 Indy Lights title rival Kyle Kirkwood took them both into the wall.
Kirkwood bore more responsibility for the clash, and Malukas would’ve had to jump dramatically out of the way to avoid it once Kirkwood was committed. But it was quite telling that he didn’t.
“You have to put your elbows out, you’ve got to fight people now,” Newgarden continued.
“If you don’t, they’re going to fight you back and you’re going to end up passed or in the wall.
“He’s just been like the most respectful driver I’ve seen out of a rookie in a long time.
“I think he’s starting to be like ‘how much can I push on people?’
“He probably would have done that tonight. But I would have felt comfortable racing with him.
“I think he’s the best rookie I’ve seen in a long time to be racing respectfully.”
Malukas can afford to be a bit naive right now. He’s in an exciting, nothing-to-lose, pretty pressure-free stage of his career.
Some Indy Lights podiums in 2019 and a very distant second to Linus Lundqvist in Formula Regional Americas in 2020 didn’t mark him out as someone who’d make the ultra-highly-rated Kirkwood work so hard for the Lights title.
And even that Lights season didn’t suggest that when Coyne was finally in the mix for an IndyCar race win again, it would be Malukas who nearly made it happen rather than his double Indianapolis 500 winning, Formula 1 veteran team-mate Takuma Sato.
Coyne played the Gateway race very well, with a series of offbeat strategic moves that moved Sato and Malukas into contention – and for a while placed them 1-2 with rain looming, though it arrived a little too late and stayed too briefly to fit the team’s plan.
Winning because it rained when you’d taken the lead via an off-sequence pit strategy would’ve actually been a really hollow result compared to the second place Malukas ended up earning on wheel-to-wheel merit.
Urged on by his ex-racer spotter Pancho Carter and benefiting from fresher tyres than those he was chasing (though not significantly fresher than the Penske drivers’), Malukas’s progress from fifth to second after the rain delay was achieved through sheer racecraft.
He was kicking himself just a little at the finish. He’d held back from trying to pass McLaughlin around the outside because he feared his tyres were getting too worn to make that move work.
“The tyres were getting old, I wasn’t doing the high line because I didn’t think it would be able to hold,” he explained.
Malukas tried it anyway, “mainly just because Pancho told me to” with a characteristically blunt “‘do it, go up there'” message.
And then he realised he could have done it sooner and had a shot at Newgarden too.
“That was my mistake because the Dale Coyne Racing car was very good and handled it with a breeze,” Malukas reflected.
“It was a bit unfortunate I did it so late. But I guess… rookie season, rookie stuff.
“I’m going to put it in the back of my brain and remember it for next time.”
Newgarden felt he would’ve had a bit in reserve had Malukas caught him sooner, but certainly wasn’t confident of dismissing his threat.
“I think he would have had a shot. There is no doubt. He was a little better on tyres, it sounds like,” said the winner.
“I was sort of managing the gap. I think if David mounted like a real effort on me, I would have had more to push on him.
“But I don’t know. 10 more laps, maybe he gets me. It’s impossible to say. I think time worked out for us.”
IndyCar’s 2023 driver market is in a degree of stalled chaos right now while the paddock waits to see if champion Alex Palou gets the McLaren move he desires, is forced to stay with Ganassi, or even has to sit next season out altogether.
Malukas’s rapid improvement curve in all aspects from racecraft to sheer pace to race management to physical fitness has to make him worth a serious look for any top IndyCar team that ends up with a sudden hole for 2023.
It feels like another year of learning relatively under-the-radar at Coyne/HMD might be beneficial. Equally, the possibilities for how that learning could be accelerated at a better-resourced team with a host of experienced team-mates are tantalising.
When Palou showed up as a rookie at Coyne in 2020, no one expected he’d be champion with Ganassi just a year later.
The respectful, engaging Malukas probably can’t foresee that sort of trajectory for himself right now – and it would be wrong to do so on the basis of a couple of individual strong races.
But you get the feeling the likes of Newgarden and McLaughlin expect to see Malukas taking them on in a title fight sooner rather than later.
