Scott McLaughlin claims his first IndyCar oval win in Iowa
After five years Scott McLaughlin has finally won an IndyCar race at an oval after winning the Hy-Vee Homefront 250.
Last week Pato O’Ward took victory in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. However, this weekend it is a return to oval circuit racing for the Hy-Vee Homefront 250 and the Hy-Vee One Step 250. Last night was the Hy-Vee Homefront 250 and it was Colton Herta who headed the field after claiming pole position.
As the race began it was not long until the caution flags appeared around the oval after David Malukas made a mistake and collided with Romain Grosjean and Agustin Canapino at Turn Two. At the same corner, Christian Lundgaard also span, but he was not involved in the other incident.
Herta took the restart and was already trying to fight off the hard-charging Team Penske car of Scott McLaughlin.
After the caution flags were thrown on lap 80 all the drivers dived into pit lane for fresh tyres. This pit stop would be the turning point in the race as McLaughlin was able to jump Herta in the pit lane.
The race went green once again on lap 94 and this time it was the New Zealander trying to defend from the American, rather than the other way around like it was earlier on in the race.
Drama struck for the Championship leader, Alex Palou, as the Spaniard spun on the start-finish straight, bringing out another yellow flag. This was perfect timing for the race leader, McLaughlin, as he headed into the pitlane with the rest of the field. However, Herta had pitted just three laps earlier.
McLaughlin once again had to lead the field away from four further restarts as Linus Lundqvist retired with 50 laps to go, Herta spun out of race-winning contention at turn three with 28 laps to go and then Ed Carpenter and Pietro Fittipaldi collided.
At the end of the race, McLaughlin ended up being the clear winner as he took the chequered flag. Behind him, O’Ward and Josef Newgarden rounded out the podium positions.
In the remaining positions in the top five it was Scott Dixon in fourth and Rinus Veekay in fifth. With Santino Ferrucci, Kyle Kirkwood, Alexander Rossi, Marcus Ericsson and Marcus Armstrong rounding out the top ten.
