IndyCar: McLaughlin holds off Power to win GP of Portland

Before a sparse crowd at Portland International Raceway, polesitter Scott McLaughlin led almost every lap to win the GP of Portland NTT IndyCar race by 1.17s over his teammate Will Power, both in superior Penske Chevys.

Scott Dixon closed to 1.6s at the end, but had to settle for 3rd in his Ganassi Honda.

McLaughlin led 104 of 110 laps.  Today was the third NTT INDYCAR Series win of his career.

“The car was phenomenal. ‘ McLaughlin said.  “I got a good start. Just for us the whole day, and the weekend went to plan. We racked up with a car that just needed a massage, like I said, on Friday. I was able to work on myself and then qualifying came around.  We saved a set of tires, a reasonably good set of tires, for the Fast Six. We used that and got the pole.”

“I knew today that my first stint was going to set everything up. That’s exactly what happened.”

“I’m not sure what happened behind me. I knew that I couldn’t control what was behind me.  All I could do is control what I did. It went to exactly to plan.”

Pato O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren Chevy and Graham Rahal’s Honda rounded out the top 5 ahead of Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi and Josef Newgarden.

Chip Ganassi’s Scott Dixon made the most of today’s race by moving up from 16th to finish on the podium in third place.  The 42-year-old six-time INDYCAR champion is now tied for second place in the points with Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, who started and finished eighth today.

The race ran 84 laps before the first and only yellow flag, caused by Ed Carpenter’s Rinus VeeKay not leaving enough room to move around Jimmie Johnson before going into Turn 1.   The no 48 Carvana Ganassi Racing  car was damaged and was not able to finish the race.   The Dutch driver, just a few days short of being 22 years old, received a drive-through penalty for the incident.

Two of the drivers in the championship hunt were eliminated today.  Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward finished the race fourth, but did not earn enough points to continue as a championship contender.  The 2021 Champion, Alex Palou, was not able to keep his Chip Ganassi Racing entry up in the front and finished 12th today.

Will Power

Power is still leading the points for the championship, but a teammate, Josef Newgarden, and Scott Dixon are both just 20 points behind him.  The pressure has to be immense on him to complete this championship at Laguna Seca.

“Solid day. Still a very tough fight. We’ve got to come up to Laguna seriously ready. Yeah, as you know, in this series it switches incredibly quickly. Got to be smart.”

” I can’t tell you how much experience does play into it, though. Over a season, over even a race, it makes a big difference, and that’s why you see the championship as it is.”

“There’s definitely some super quick, young fast guys. What is putting the whole thing together is the experienced but in my opinion, and you don’t even have to be the quickest guy. You have to be experienced and smart and, obviously, a great team as well makes a difference.”

What will it take to win a seventh championship?  Scott Dixon, who is no stranger to being close to another series title, added his thoughts on what it will take in the final race of the season next weekend.

“We did as much as we could today. We definitely got a little tighter at the end, but we had to use a lot of overtake early on, so that definitely changed things up, I think, for the strategy towards the final five there.”

“I don’t think I’ve started out front too much this year. It would definitely make our day a lot easier. There’s alternate lines at Laguna, and it’s pretty high. I think the tire, the red tire, especially that they’re bringing this year is a higher tire than what we had in previous years. That could definitely change the red tire strategy. It could be a five-stopper, who knows if the temperature is high.”

” We have some work to do, and hopefully, we will get there. Laguna Seca had a big resurface change in the off season, which will change the track a lot.  It’s technical and sometimes quite difficult to get your head around.”

Race Results