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Well, that was something!
After a three-week hiatus, well earned by crews and drivers, after the Road America weekend, the stars and cars of the IndyCar Series got back to it over Fourth of July weekend at the always-entertaining Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, where thousands of fans packed in to watch a frenetic eight-lap race full of action.
Here are some of the talking points from a wild weekend in the Buckeye State.
Scott McLaughlin wins
The Kiwi picked up his second career IndyCar Series win (after breaking his drought on the streets of St Petersburg earlier this year) from second on the grid by largely staying out of trouble when it seemed like the rest of the field imploded at varying stages and in varying ways in one of the more chaotic IndyCar Series races in recent memory – and one of the more entertaining ones, too.
Certainly, McLaughlin got lucky with polesitter Patricio O’Ward retiring fifty-four laps in with power issues and the timing of a caution that flew just after his first pit stop, but, crucially, he also drove a clean and smart race, which isn’t something you can say about many of his fellow drivers, even with pressure coming from reigning IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou.
Scott McLaughlin in his V8 days. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)
A very mature, sensible weekend.
That little mid-season slump is a thing of the past now, and a few more performances like we saw from McLaughlin on Sunday – with still half the 2022 season to run – and he’ll vault back into championship contention. Fantastic to see Scott win with his parents in attendance, after leading forty-five of the final fifty-two laps and forty-six of eighty total.
For the record, Rinus VeeKay brought his Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet home in fourth with New Zealander Scott Dixon in fifth for Chip Ganassi.
Will Power finishes third
Another championship-quality drive from the Toowoomba native sees Power vault back into second place in the overall standings (trailing only Ganassi’s Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson), but it certainly wasn’t all smooth sailing.
A spin on the second lap of the race, trying to make a second audacious pass, saw the 2018 Indianapolis 500 champion shotgun on the field.
From there, Power scythed his way through, back towards the pointy end, taking advantage of some brain fades from other drivers and not losing his own mind, going from the outhouse to the penthouse in one of the best drives I can remember.
If Power goes on to win the 2022 IndyCar Series championship, we will look back on this race that could have been a disaster but ended with a nice haul of points.
IndyCar series driver Will Power (Photo by Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Andretti Autosport implodes
The Mid Ohio headline won’t be McLaughlin’s win or Will Power’s run through the field to finish second, but the clashes between teammates.
Notably, Romain Grosjean and Alexander Rossi, who touched on consecutive laps going through the keyhole turn. The second iteration of their full-contact stoush sent Grosjean into the wall and Rossi off the track as well. Grosjean labelled Rossi an ‘absolute idiot’.
Elsewhere, Rossi, leaving for the greener pastures of Arrow McLaren SP next season and clearly in no mood to play nice with his soon-to-be-former teammates, was given a penalty for running into another teammate, Devlin DeFrancesco (who, it must be said, has been guilty of running into a few drivers already this season) and Grosjean had his own mandated trip down pit lane for contact with the fourth Andretti entry, that of Colton Herta.
It was a rough day at the office in more ways than one for the Andretti squad: Herta was their best finisher in fifteenth, DeFrancesco came home seventeenth, with Rossi in nineteenth and Grosjean back in twenty-first.
I can only imagine what Michael Andretti was thinking watching his team come apart at the seams, and it’s probably just as well that no one from NBC wandered over and put a microphone in front of him to get his thoughts.
With only one win on the season (Herta on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course), the third of IndyCar’s supposed Big Three is falling way behind Penske (six wins) and is tied with Ganassi’s one win, though Chip’s lone 2022 victory lane visit came at the Indianapolis 500, which makes a huge difference, and the team’s three drivers – Ericsson, Palou and Scott Dixon – are inside the top six in the IndyCar Series championship. It’s fair to say that Andretti is now fighting Arrow McLaren SP for third spot in that Big Three.
A Fourth of July weekend to forget for Michael Andretti’s team, but wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall at the team’s shop for the post-race debrief?
It will be very interesting to see how the team recovers from this, and how the rest of the season plays out. Surely things can’t get any worse there?
Eighth for Helio
Fair to say it hasn’t been the best return to full-time IndyCar Series competition for four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, but his eighth-place finish on Sunday was definitely a positive for the fan favourite, beating home teammate Simon Pagenaud (who finished tenth).
It was the best run for Meyer-Shank Racing outside of Indianapolis this year, and hopefully a sign that the team, helmed by the popular Mike Shank, is headed in the right direction.
New Zealand- Australia 1-2 in Indy Lights
Kiwi Hunter McElrea scored his first ever Indy Lights race win leading all thirty-five laps of the season’s eighth race. 2.6 seconds behind was Australian Matt Brabham, who returned to Indy Lights competition this year after a long absence.
Now, to get Stan Sport to start broadcasting Indy Lights races as well. In the meantime, the races are live on IndyCar Radio via the IndyCar app and later available as podcasts.
Next stop, Toronto
An off weekend for the IndyCar Series coming up this weekend, then it’s the annual trip north of the border to Toronto, Canada for what is always an entertaining race around the streets of Exhibition Place near downtown. It’s the first time since the 2019 season that IndyCars will race in Toronto, and given everything that transpired, it might be the most anticipated race of the year.
For IndyCar, the Toronto race will be a broadcasting experiment, the first time a race appears exclusively on Peacock, NBC’s streaming service. It will be presented with limited commercial interruption, which means more commentary on the Stan feed, as well.
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