IndyCar

McLaughlin wins Portland as Power edges closer to IndyCar title

by Jack Benyon
8 min read

Scott McLaughlin won the third race of his sophomore IndyCar season at Portland, as Alex Palou and Pato O’Ward were expelled from championship contention heading into next week’s finale.

IndyCar’s hard work and tweaking of the first corner meant a miraculous avoidance of any incidents at the start, which set up a more traditional race in terms of strategy.

The Penske polesitter McLaughlin maintained the lead throughout the race and was incredibly impressive, before finally on lap 84 any chance of ending a 15-year run with a caution in every race, Rinus VeeKay cut across Jimmie Johnson and smashed him into the wall. VeeKay later apologised via Twitter.

On the restart, Scott Dixon made the most of a scruffy move by Arrow McLaren SP’s O’Ward – who had to win to stay in title contention – on Penske’s points leader Will Power for second and Alexander Rossi’s move on Josef Newgarden for Dixon to jump into fourth, and then Pato O’Ward blocked Dixon and was forced to give him third.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dixon had started 16th but an early undercut put him into the top 10 and choosing soft tyres for the last stint proved the right call.

Newgarden – fourth at the time – chose the hard at the last stop in anticipation of the soft tyre going off but the caution alleviated that, and left Newgarden with a tyre that was slower and tougher to get temperature into.

Despite being smashed into by O’Ward, Power was able to keep Dixon at bay but there was no stopping McLaughlin on the way to a third win in 2022, only Newgarden has scored more in a phenomenal season for the relative newcomer to single-seaters.

It moves McLaughlin ahead of Marcus Ericsson into fourth in the standings and 39 points behind Power with 54 on offer in the last race.

Power was able to extend his points lead with second but Dixon might be the big winner given his 16h starting spot and being sixth on the final restart before his daring move at Turn 1 and 2 to take what would become the podium.

O’Ward took fourth but falls out of the championship chase, with Graham Rahal repeating his strong Portland form of last year with an impressive first stint on used softs to set up what would become a top five finish with some calculated driving. He harried O’Ward in the last stint but couldn’t fight through.

Colton Herta capped a day where Red Bull all but confirmed its intentions to install him at AlphaTauri in Formula 1 next year by overcoming a troublesome first half of the race to fightback through to sixth, ahead of team-mate Alexander Rossi.

Rossi had been passed late on by star rookie Christian Lundgaard who started third and ran as high as second before a slow stop dumped him back.

Before Lundgaard could complete the move, he hit the advertising hoarding at Turn 1 and got it stuck to his front wing, meaning he had to pit and came 21st.

Behind Rossi in seventh was Newgarden who will lament the hard tyre call that puts him further behind Power and closer to Dixon in the standings.

Callum Ilott stayed out of trouble to take ninth, his second-best IndyCar finish, ahead of Arrow McLaren SP’s Felix Rosenqvist.

Ericsson passed team-mate and reigning champion Alex Palou – who struggled with a rear-end issue and is officially out of championship contention now – late on, but even an 11th-place finish means he’ll head to Laguna Seca over 40 points behind with 53 on offer.

Race Results

Pos Name Team Car Laps Laps Led Total Time Fastest Lap Pitstops Pts
1 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 110 104 1h56m15.689s 59.825s 3 54
2 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 110 2 +1.179s 1m0.104s 3 41
3 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +1.6s 1m0.281s 3 35
4 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 110 0 +13.889s 1m0.456s 3 32
5 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 110 2 +14.821s 1m0.271s 3 31
6 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport with Curb-Agajanian Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +16.304s 1m0.248s 3 28
7 Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +17.004s 1m0.527s 3 26
8 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 110 0 +17.606s 59.587s 3 24
9 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 110 0 +18.098s 1m0.345s 3 23
10 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 110 0 +18.635s 1m0.448s 3 20
11 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +23.517s 1m0.596s 3 19
12 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +27.528s 1m0.056s 3 18
13 Kyle Kirkwood A.J. Foyt Enterprises Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 110 0 +28.332s 1m0.37s 3 17
14 David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsport Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +29.029s 1m0.359s 3 16
15 Jack Harvey Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +31.233s 1m0.821s 3 15
16 Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +32.575s 1m0.335s 3 14
17 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +33.812s 1m0.163s 3 13
18 Takuma Sato Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +34.088s 1m0.925s 3 12
19 Romain Grosjean Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 110 0 +34.73s 1m0.256s 3 11
20 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 110 0 +35.445s 1m0.47s 4 10
21 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 110 1 +44.55s 1m0.014s 4 10
22 Dalton Kellett A.J. Foyt Enterprises Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 109 0 +1 lap 1m01.126s 3 8
23 Simon Pagenaud Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 100 0 +10 laps 59.872s 4 7
Jimmie Johnson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 82 0 DNF 1m0.339s 3 6
Conor Daly Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 67 0 DNF 1m01.573s 2 5
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More Networks