IndyCar: Children’s GP of Alabama Post-Race Press Conference

Participants:

1st – Scott McLaughlin

2nd – Romain Grosjean

3rd – Will Power

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Scott McLaughlin, winner of today’s race. First win of the season, fourth of his career. Now the fourth different winner of the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season. Scott, with the win, jumps up to fourth place in points now, 11 points back in the championship.

A lot of storylines for you in this race. To get a win here, it’s got to feel good.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Feels awesome. I think we have had the pace. Obviously St. Pete we were strong, contending for wins, maybe not Texas, but Long Beach we were right there.

I’m really proud to sort of execute today. Probably the most complete race I’ve ever driven in an INDYCAR, to be honest, from a strategy perspective, picking people off. It was getting pretty tough in the middle when we were making passes, lap traffic, whatnot.

Ultimately when Grosjean got me out of the pits, didn’t catch me by surprise. Well, he caught me napping. It was a great move by him. To reset, go again, then pass him back with the pace that we had, that’s a proud drive for me personally, but from a team perspective, really proud.

Good Ranchers first time on the car. They’re going to be big supporters in INDYCAR. Their enthusiasm they have got for the series I think is just great. They have people like that willing to spend money in our series, that are so passionate.

They didn’t have customers here this weekend, they had staff and the CEO. It’s a good vibe. Really proud for them.

Yeah, perfect way to kick off what is going to be a massive month.

THE MODERATOR: The battle between you and Romain, immediately everyone was thinking St. Pete.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I knew it.

THE MODERATOR: What was going through your mind as you’re trying to hold him off?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I thought if I hit him this time, it would be bad (smiling).

Racing him like we normally do, very clean. I knew it was going to be hard passing him. It was a matter of me biding my time. I asked the guys, Where are we at on fuel? Had a bit more than him. Allowed me to pressure him a bit more, use a bit more to overtake, whatever. I had a lot more overtake up my sleeve.

Ultimately that’s what helped me pass him. I think the way I got the run up into turn eight was purely by push to pass. I was able to save that. Once we got out in front, it was just a matter of managing it till the end.

THE MODERATOR: When that battle is happening, you know you’re going to have the fresher tires at the end of the day, would have an opportunity to make a move, try to repass him.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, but it was hard. I thought I’d be on the safe side when I had the reds on. Thought I might have been able to get him back. But he had great pace. I knew I couldn’t sit behind him too long. I had to pressure him. Yeah, that’s what we did, managed to get the pass.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Racing at Alabama, Barber, your take on what it’s like racing out there?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Personally I think this is our best road course that we go to. Especially now it’s my favorite (smiling).

Honestly, it’s a great place. The state of Alabama do a fantastic job with how they look after things. Obviously (indiscernible) before that. A beautiful place. I remember coming here the first time going, Whoa, this is amazing.

But to drive an INDYCAR around here at high speeds, high commitment, is some of the best driving you’ll ever do. I’m telling all my friends back in Australia like Shane van Gisbergen. People are asking, like, the track looks awesome. Yeah, this is next-level commitment.

They’ve got a gym here. I’m very excited they extended the contract multi-year for more races here, especially now I know I’ve got a good car. Very cool, cool place.

Q. The Indy 500, you douse yourself in milk. The Nestle Drum Sticks, can you talk about that?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: John has been there for 40 years. He always as ice creams after, especially after we win. I had an ice cream after qualifying yesterday and I sucked. Maybe I just needed more ice cream.

Q. Obviously with the new sponsor, the stakes are high. When Grosjean gets past you, what’s your level of frustration? Are you thinking with everything that happened in St. Pete, you know there’s going to be major contact, it’s not going to go as nicely this time around?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Never thought that. I ultimately was just like, Okay, got past me, caught me napping. That was a great move by him. I had car pace and fuel on hand.

I think ultimately I would have got past him anyway with how much he had to save fuel. I wasn’t stressed. I was annoyed I cost myself maybe cruising in some ways, saving fuel, driving to my number.

Ultimately it made the race win a lot more satisfying passing for the lead after being passed at the end of the exchange.

Q. Power was on reds till the end. Did his pace concern you at all?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: No, no, no. I was full, like, in control. Honestly, I felt like the car was so good, I was just hitting my number, did what I needed to do. I knew if Power got to me, I had pace and fuel on hand to push till the end.

Q. There was concern on the radio about fuel. Did they tell you why?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: No. Ultimately I think we were looking after our engine. Whenever you get that call halfway through the last lap, you poop your pants a little bit. Yeah, I was pretty nervous.

Q. When you’re running on a different strategy to the two-stoppers were, the race starts to play itself out, how much in your mind are you thinking you hope you made the right move or we should have gone the other way?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, I just trust my team. The only concern I had was why we stopped a couple laps after Josef and we lost track position on him. We eventually sort of caught up and passed him.

I wasn’t too stressed about that. It was just a matter of just maximizing what I had, what my cards were. That was getting through traffic and using that car pace.

We talked about that in the strategy meeting this morning. Sort of knew what I had to do. At the end of the day I see a 10th of what everyone else sees on the stand. I know I’ve got the best guys in pit lane calling my strategy. I just trust them.

It’s a boring answer, but legitimately for me I was ticking laps off in my head, driving the best I could, doing what I needed to do.

Q. I heard from your dad. He said, That was a pretty cool race, wasn’t it? He’s quite happy right now.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I’m sure he is. It’s like 6 a.m. in the morning.

Q. The Bus Bros care package is sorted and the Chocolate Fish are in there.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Thank you. No worries.

Q. How close did you come to touching Romain? Did you touch in either of those?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I think we touched when he passed me a little bit. But it was fair game. It was awesome racing, man. It was exactly what INDYCAR was. Yeah, ain’t no procession here, that’s for sure. It was a lot of fun.

Q. When you have had an incident like you had in St. Pete racing wheel to wheel through a corner, do you have to approach when you’re passing someone any different or do you learn something from that type of incident to better prepare you to pass that specific driver coming into another situation that was similar today?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: No, no, no. Just play your cards as you get dealt. Take risks where you need to. You got to learn from your mistakes obviously. We both had our opinions on the incident from St. Pete. We’re over it now. For me, I think for him as well, it was just press on.

Yeah, I think we showed today it’s no big thing affair. It’s just hard racing. We’ll race each other to every bit of the track, use each other up when we need to. That’s just part of it and that’s why I enjoy racing Romain.

Q. What did you see from your vantage point when you made your move in turn five? Was it a little bit of a wiggle coming through? Did you find yourself at that point waiting for him to make a mistake or move?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I was pressuring him. I knew he was starting to save fuel and stuff. I was biding my time. I was really surprised. I didn’t think I was going to pass him at that point. Sort of just took my chance.

I had a lot more push to pass than he did. I just used push to pass all the way up to seven, managed to clear him. He was never going to sort of pass me into eight. If he did pass me into eight, he was probably going to crash me. Just sort of hoped to God that he didn’t do that, and he didn’t. We got out of there and pressed on.

Q. He came into the sport at the same time, rookie seasons ups and downs at the same time. Even though you had the incident in St. Pete, seems like you have a lot of respect, aren’t afraid to bang wheels, have a lot of trust in each other. How do you view or how would you describe Romain as a competitor on track?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: He’s got a never-give-up attitude. I think that’s why he’s been in F1 for so long, come over here and been quite successful.

At the end of the day you know you’re going to have a hard battle with him. I feel it’s give or take. If you give him nothing, he will give you nothing. It’s the whole tit for tat. I really enjoy racing him. No hard feelings.

We spoke about what happened, yeah, and just get on with it. I’ve had great battles with him. I actually really enjoyed the battle today. It’s a lot of fun. Obviously I came out on top, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Q. We’ve had a wide variety of races. St. Pete was a brawl. The big oval at Texas, another interesting race. Talk about how you approach it when you don’t have any idea what you’re going to get when you come to a racetrack.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I think it’s just the product of INDYCAR. But play your cards how you’re dealt. Today could have been a two-stop, or a three-stop like we did. We thought it was a three-stop was the right way.

We have the opportunity as a series to change that up. That’s why it makes it so exciting. I think the addition of push to pass, stuff going on as well, is a good thing. It’s such a good racing product. I don’t know how to explain it. I think we’re very lucky with the level of drivers, how hard we can race the cars. The cars are very strong.

The difference in compounds. The tires are really good. Firestone built a really good tire that’s able to race in hard conditions all the time.

Yeah, I don’t know. I just think it’s INDYCAR. It’s not a about winning every race in this racing series, it’s all about just being consistent in the championship. That’s exactly what our goal has sort of been since the start.

Q. Your strategy meeting, you write everything in pencil, here is what we think we might be able to do?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: It all depends on yellows. If there was an early yellow, our thing probably wouldn’t have worked that well. Two-stoppers would have looked really good.

Yeah, you just got to play your cards how you think you’re going to be right, hopefully it comes off. You can’t beat car pace. That’s the best part, you can’t beat car pace.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Thanks.

Will Power and Romain Grosjean

THE MODERATOR: Will Power, third-place finish, 95th career podium. Tell us about your day. Trying to close the gap on Romain towards the end.

WILL POWER: Yeah, in the first stint when I saw everyone saving fuel about eight to 10 laps in, I said to the guys, Maybe we should switch to a three-stopper here. Do you want me to push? It was the best thing to do at that time.

Yeah, it worked out well. We had a very fast car. Any time we had clear air, we were pumping out some seriously quick times. During that last sequence is where we gained a ton of track position. I was able to do 67s in the last few laps.

Yeah, using the tires up. As soon as I started getting Romain’s dirty air, he was doing a really good job of sort of saving fuel and also getting big exits, not making mistakes. I did everything I could to get to him and I just couldn’t get there.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Romain, on pit lane you alluded the push to pass surprised you a little bit, went from 99 seconds to zero. Have you gotten any explanation what may have happened?

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: Maybe I just had a brain freeze and it actually went down (smiling). That’s what I thought. I thought it was 99, the next thing it was zero.

We’re just going to have a look. Maybe it’s a glitch in the dashboard or software, I don’t know. I don’t feel like I used 200 seconds. I just want to make sure we understand what happened.

Anyway, I don’t think it would have changed a lot, as the two guys, Scott and Will, were much better on fuel in the last stint. It would have been tough to keep them behind.

Q. The first lap you had a fierce fight with Pato and with Alex. Were you surprised it was that fierce that early?

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: Yes, I thought, What are they doing? I did manage to keep the lead, then they suffer more than I did. I guess it was the right call to stay in the front and dictate my pace.

Q. Will, did we see you go back to maybe last year’s championship strategy where better to get third than to push it?

WILL POWER: I mean, I did everything to get to him and try to get him. Yeah, obviously there’s that fine line, right? You can overdo it, which I did have a big moment in turn two where I was opposite like that.

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: I saw it in the mirror.

WILL POWER: So, yeah, I mean, just had to weigh that up. I simply couldn’t close that gap. Yeah, he was doing a good job. My tires were sort of used up. Dirty air. Tried with push to pass. Nothing I could do. That’s the most I could get out of the day. Extremely happy with it. Extremely, extremely happy to finish third.

Q. Two Team Penskes in the top three, without one of them being Josef, shows how fast this McLaughlin kid is.

WILL POWER: Yeah, two races where I followed him on the same bloody strategy. He ended up ahead.

That all ebbs and flows in the season when you’re doing a good job. If you’re doing your job, you’ll get what you deserve, whether that’s good or bad. Depends how good you do your job.

Q. Will, your season hasn’t been bad, but it hasn’t been good. A quarter of the way through the season now, heading to Indianapolis, how important was it to get the kind of finish you got today?

WILL POWER: Yeah, look, if I finished fifth I would have been happy, or sixth, even eighth honestly. There are days that it’s a bad day that get you.

I would say in the start of my season, it’s just been pretty good. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad start of the season at all. I’ve been happy with all the results except for one, which was Texas. You can’t win ’em all. In fact, it’s very difficult to win one or two in a season. You just have to keep racking up good finishes.

Q. Romain, we couldn’t tell from watching the broadcast if in either of those two trades of the lead if you ever touched wheels. Did you make any contact there at all?

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: We kissed each other a touch (smiling).

Q. When you’re fighting for the lead multiple times, with what happened at St. Pete, do you approach that any differently? Do you give him any more space, attack in a different place?

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: No, I know with Scott, a few guys out there that I’m really not worried about racing. Scott made a mistake in St. Pete. I know he doesn’t race that way. It was all clean.

It’s quite funny. He reminded me on the podium that last year I got him at the same spot. Next year I probably won’t get him there if he’s in front.

Q. You said post race a fifth second-place finish for you hurts. How are you dealing with a series of close calls knowing how much you want to get this first win in your INDYCAR career?

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: You know what, you need to do everything perfect to win. Today we didn’t have the right strategy. It is what it is. Control what you can control. That’s what we did.

We executed very well this weekend. We had a fast car. Got pole. 20 seconds ahead of the two stoppers on the race finish. That shows how fast we were. We just didn’t have the right strategy today, so…

I’d say we were not too bad. Put me P4 in the championship. Big picture, yes I wanted to win today, it hurts to not do it. We have a lot more occasions. If I can win Indy and the 500, it would be good.

WILL POWER: Got to be strong. I did both one time (smiling). If you can do it, probably good. You’d come out leading the championship.

Q. Romain, could you talk us through your overtake on Scott from a perspective of how you set that up, managed to pull that move off.

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: The beauty of INDYCAR is the track evolves a lot during the race. You never really know what the grip is.

Scott saw I wanted to go on the inside in 15, 16. He closed the door. I thought my only option is to go on the outside, roll some speed, see if the grip is there. The grip was there. I managed to get side by side in the apex.

Same thing with turn five. The grip came on the very outside of the end of the race for some reason. It’s the beauty of it. You have to adapt a lot during the race, your driving style.

Those races are tough. They’re very tough, demanding. That’s the way it goes. I was hoping for grip and I got the grip.

Q. You were 19 seconds ahead of the next person on the same strategy. Even though you lost out on the win, it’s almost like a win in some sense, how far ahead you were of everybody else.

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: I think when your team boss comes to see you and says that’s probably the best drive he’s seen in INDYCAR, he’s been around for a long time, Michael, you take that as a win.

Very proud of my engineer, my mechanics. We made P1, so we beat them on the back foot and got them with pole. We had a fast car today. With the fuel number we had to hit doing the lap times we were doing, pretty amazing. I’m really happy with that.

I saw Will coming, but I knew it would be at the end of his red tire life. When he was in dirty air, it would be hard for him. Try not to make any mistakes and keep enough fuel for the last two laps.

Q. Will, how much of a benefit is finishing on the podium going into the month of May? Does it bode well for the month of May?

WILL POWER: Yeah, I mean, it’s good for the whole group on the car. Obviously mentally for yourself, it’s a very positive thing. Everything’s heading in the right direction.

Indy is a very, very different animal in terms of the 500. Obviously you have the Grand Prix before that. But, yeah, the 500 is a very standalone, tough, unique event. Yeah, we’re hoping to be in the game this year. We’ve been pretty disappointed with the performance the last few years.

We’ll wait and see. You don’t say anything. We’ve done a lot of work.

Q. Romain, explain to a race fan how difficult it is to try to hit that number and how technical it was to put in such a great drive, how satisfying is it to pull it off, get the number you wanted?

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: It’s probably the most frustrating type of racing. You know you can go faster, you want to keep the throttle pinned in, but you can’t.

I think today probably didn’t play in our favor the wind direction. There are two big places where you are going to do lift and coast. Basically you lift the throttle before the end of the straight line, you leave the car rolling until you get to the brake point.

It was 12 and five. Both of them were the headwinds. I think it was slowing down the car more than it should have. That probably played a bit of a role in the lap time. Probably something to keep in mind for the future.

Out of 90 laps, I think I did three laps where I was flat out, that’s it. The rest I had to lift and coast and save fuel. It’s a strategy we decided as a team before the race. We thought we could win with it, but obviously no.

Q. Will, you were the other side of that coin. What does that feel like?

WILL POWER: I mean, last year I did the two-stop, was doing what he had to do, went from 19th to 4th. This year we did the opposite thinking that the fuel mileage will be harder. If there’s not a yellow, the number is going to be too big and the lap time deficit is too much.

Yeah, it kind of turned out like that. I think the yellow helped the three-stoppers a bit. Would have saved those guys a little bit of fuel. It was perfect timing for our pit stop.

But, yeah, it’s a lot more fun when you get to just go all out, qualifying laps every lap. I really enjoy that sort of racing.

I have to say what he did is extremely difficult and technical. To finish 20 seconds ahead of the next guy is pretty impressive.

Q. Romain, you ran out of fuel on the cool-down lap.

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: I guess I’m glad I’m not the engineer on the pit wall making the call about the fuel number. They just give me a number, and I try to hit it, right? That’s all I do. For them, it’s a lot of pressure. I think in Long Beach we were a bit too conservative. We could have burnt some more.

On the in lap, I think Josef Newgarden stopped by me. I think Colton was without fuel on track because everyone pushed it hard. Yeah, almost made it to the pit, missed by 150 meters.

Q. Will, you had great pace towards the end of the race. You’ve done well here at Barber. Is there something about this track that fits your driving style?

WILL POWER: They’re all different. These days you’ve got to be an expert at every track. It requires a lot of homework, which every single driver does now, as you can see from qualifying.

I’ve just got a good group around me making the right decisions in the race. It is a real process to put a whole race weekend together without mistakes. That’s what I’ve worked very hard on over the last couple years.

I struggled this weekend. I basically qualified 11th. I think our potential was just on the verge of the top six. We were pretty close to where we needed to be. Then executed in the race.

Yeah, I love the track. I think it’s a phenomenal event. The appearance, presentation they do, is really good. It’s setting the example for all promoters. Yeah, I hope we continue to come here for years.

Q. Romain, so close. Next time?

ROMAIN GROSJEAN: I guess so. It’s done today, so on to the next one, Indy GP. I was fast in ’21. Last year was a bit more difficult.

The two races we finished this year twice second. We’re knocking on the door, and eventually the door will open. So I am not too worried. As Will said, it’s super competitive, it’s tough. We have to push every single lap hard. Yeah, today they did a better job on the strategy.