Scott McLaughlin leads the Chevrolet camp in Nashville with a runner-up result. (Photo: Kyle Ritchie | The Podium Finish)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — For the second consecutive year, Scott McLaughlin is the bridesmaid in the Music City Grand Prix.
Under similar circumstances, a late-race red flag gave the competition one last chance to catch Kyle Kirkwood for a chance of racing glory, including McLaughlin, who restarted alongside the leader.
However, it wasn’t meant to be during Sunday’s 80-lap contest as Kirkwood ended up scoring his second career NTT IndyCar Series victory by 0.763 seconds over McLaughlin.
The Kiwi explained that finishing runner-up in Nashville was disappointing. He felt that his No. 3 Chevrolet was competitive enough to score his first win since Barber in April.
However, the first caution for a bizarre mechanical failure by David Malukas altered McLaughlin’s day. Malukas, who was running inside the top 10, sustained rear wing damage before bringing his No. 18 Honda to a complete stop, finishing 27th.
“That first yellow destroyed a few things, which is probably going to play, said McLaughlin. “You hope it doesn’t come, but it came. You take it or lose your advantage, try to reset and go again. That’s what we decided, the latter.”
McLaughlin elaborated it’s hard to tell how a strategy will unfold, but when Malukas had his issues, it took place when his strategy was about to materialize.
“I knew when the yellow came out, that’s kind of the time, the first yellow, where we didn’t want it. I don’t know what plan that was. We knew it would put us in an awkward spot,” McLaughlin explained. “If it happened Lap 21 or something like that, no-brainer. We lose spots, go back to 10th. People are taking it before the yellow, kind of like last year.”
Additionally, Kirkwood’s short pit stop made a huge difference in his quest of scoring the victory. McLaughlin did everything he could to reduce any more damage to his race, but just couldn’t do much in dethroning the Andretti Autosport driver, who also excelled on restarts.
“I was trying to do my best to hunt him down at the end. I just had a poor restart, said McLaughlin, who led 25 laps. “I had no temp in my rear tires for some reason. So annoying. I don’t know what happened. Like I didn’t change my procedure. I’m normally pretty good on restarts, but I was terrible.
“I got to do a little bit of study on that. I think if I was a little bit closer, I might have been able to maybe throw a little dive bomb at him. Unfortunately couldn’t.”
If there was anything McLaughlin felt he could’ve done differently, making his move on Kirkwood’s teammate, Romain Grosjean, would’ve helped his cause. But again, he led back to his weaknesses on restarts.
“I could have passed him maybe before when he was on greens before he pitted,” said McLaughlin. “That’s just how it is. I’m pretty stoked with the result. Bummed that maybe I couldn’t have had too much of a shootout at the end. Like I said, my restart was bad.”
With four rounds remaining, McLaughlin currently sits fourth in points — a far 142 points behind championship leader Alex Palou, who finished third in Nashville.
McLaughlin’s plan is extremely straightforward.
“I’m going to win every race from here in.”
