INDIANAPOLIS – In perhaps the craziest last lap in the history of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, real or virtual, Scott McLaughlin stole the spoils of victory during Saturday’s IndyCar iRacing Challenge finale.
McLaughlin, who started the 70-lap race from the pole but was running fifth at the white flag, avoided two crashes on the final lap en route to his second win in the six-race virtual series, following a prior triumph at the virtual Barber Motorsports Park.
He dove to the inside on the frontstretch as Santino Ferrucci and leader Oliver Askew crashed in the final 150 feet, taking the checkered flag in front of surprise runner-up Conor Daly by .282 seconds.
“I was hoping there was going to be one wreck, and there was two,” the Team Penske driver explained. “I thought we were going to get third. We were in the right place at the right time.”
In a narrative showing just how much the emotion of winning – and losing – at Indy means, no less than four drivers were crashed out of the lead inside of eight laps to go in the First Responders 175.
The run to the finish was set up by a multi-car accident on the backstretch at lap 58, bunching the field up for a nine-lap sprint with defending Indianapolis 500 champion Simon Pagenaud out in front.
He was drafted past by Graham Rahal down the backstretch on lap 62, with Lando Norris closing rapidly as that trio nearly went three-wide across the Yard of Bricks.
Entering turn one, Norris pitched his Arrow McLaren SP entry nearly onto the apron, taking Rahal and Pagenaud three-wide in the process. By the time the trio was in the short chute, Rahal had washed up the track into Pagenaud and the No. 22 Menards Dallara-Chevrolet was in the outside wall.
That handed the point position to Norris, who held command as his McLaren teammates – Oliver Askew and Pato O’Ward – worked into second and third behind him for a potential podium sweep by the team.
It didn’t last.
Coming to two to go, Pagenaud was slowing exiting turn four as Norris was hurtling into the picture, with a near-50 mph difference between the two. With no way to avoid, Norris slammed into the back of Pagenaud’s virtual entry, going end over end through the air as a result and falling out of contention.
Askew inherited the lead after that and led through the white flag, but he and O’Ward were both overhauled entering turn three for the final time as Marcus Ericsson caught the McLaren duo and passed them with a nifty three-wide sweep to the inside.
A zealous O’Ward counterpunched to the inside going into the final corner, but didn’t have the lane and tagged Ericsson into a sliding spin up the race track, allowing Askew and Santino Ferrucci by as a result.
That was the way the top two came onto the frontstretch, but it wasn’t how they finished as Ferrucci looked high, and then low on Askew before they came together and crashed wildly some 200 feet from the finish line.
As both Ferrucci and Askew went out of control, McLaughlin flicked his car down to the far inside and flashed across the Yard of Bricks, making the last-lap pass stick and leading just two laps overall.
Even if the race was virtual, since it was an Indianapolis victory, McLaughlin celebrated with a glass of milk during his on-camera interview with NBCSN after the fireworks had officially concluded.
“I didn’t know where to look; I just saw a whole bunch of crashing. That was pretty unbelievable,” McLaughlin said. “It’s really cool. Under the last caution, my front wing was damaged, so I was just trying to survive.
“Everyone crashed and that’s what happens (sometimes),” he added with a laugh. “How about that?”
In a one-off virtual race for the Carlin team, Daly came home second after starting 22nd and perhaps had the best summation of the late-race events during his interview.
“This was quite a day on the internet,” Daly noted. “It was an electric factory of a race.”
Despite crashing across the finish line, Ferrucci and Askew were scored third and fourth, respectively.
O’Ward filled out the top five, followed by Sebastien Bourdais, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Zach Veach, Felix Rosenqvist and Scott Dixon.
Ericsson fell to 11th in the final rundown, with Will Power scored 14th after dominating the first half but being caught up in the late chaos and Norris dropping all the way back to 21st at the checkered flag.
Veteran Tony Kanaan was involved in the first major crash of the day on lap four and retired early. He was credited with last in the 33-car field.
The NTT IndyCar Series is currently scheduled to resume real-life competition – and kick off its 2020 championship season – on June 6 at Texas Motor Speedway.
To view complete race results, advance to the next page.