McLaughlin Takes the Late Win at Barber Denying Grosjean

The NTT IndyCar series visited Barber Motorsports Park for the 4 installment of IndyCar racing in 2023. Scott McLaughlin took the win after a late mistake and technical issue occurred with Andretti driver Romain Grosjean. Grosjean started the race on pole after an incredible qualifying. However strategy coupled with a bit of luck led McLaughlin to the top of the podium. McLaughlin utilized a 3 stop strategy which most opted to forgo given the history of success with this strategy at Barber.

Driver Thoughts

McLaughlin spoke to NBC.com and stated, “I call it a happy driver strategy. I was a lot happier doing [the three stops]. My team advanced me to Victory Lane, we had great fuel and went past Grosjean on a little bit of strategy. I feel really pumped about it. Super pumped… May is going to be an awesome time for us, I can’t wait. To end April like this before the best race in the world, just super proud of my team and with Chevy we had great fuel mileage and a hell of a strategy.” McLaughlin led the race for 24 laps. Grosjean whom led for 57 laps seemed to have his strategy perfected. However, after running wide in Turn 5 on lap 72 Grosjean was no able to recover.

He stated, “This hurts,” referring to another 2nd place finish after leading the race. “The three-stop never wins at Barber, but today it did. The pits stayed open on that yellow, and it gave Scotty and Will a chance to go three. I just got unlucky with that yellow, but (team co-owner and his strategist) said ‘Don’t have your head down. That was one of the best drivers I’ve ever seen. I gave it all, but congrats to Scott. He deserved the win.”

Will Power’s Amazing Day

Tema Penske driver Will Power had an amazing day at Barber, “It was an extremely good day. When I saw so many people saving fuel there, and we’d talked about doing a three-stop, I felt it was better to do that, and my guys made the call. We were just super-fast when we got clear air; that was the key to getting up to third. I had a really fast car, it was a pity we didn’t start further up. Chevy did a great job with the engine. We’re on another championship run, we’re just chipping away here, we’re going to get a win here soon. We’ve gotta keep at it and improve in qualifying. I’m enjoying this a lot.”

Full Race Results are Below