PORTLAND, Ore. — Scott McLaughlin proved he is far from out of this year’s NTT IndyCar Series points race.
The Team Penske driver’s impressive victory from the pole in Sunday’s Grand Prix of Portland has elevated the driver from New Zealand to fourth in the championship, 41 points out of the lead entering next Sunday’s final race of the season — the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey.
But it was 2014 NTT IndyCar Series champion Will Power of Team Penske who opened up his lead by finishing second. He entered the race with a three-point lead over Team Penske teammate and two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Josef Newgarden by just three points.
That lead is now 20 points over Newgarden with one race remaining. Newgarden finished eighth.
Read the full results here.
Power wins the championship if he finishes third or higher next Sunday at Monterey.
“I just want to win the championship for guys that have been with me for a decade,” Power said. “It’s a lot less selfish for me this time. I want to win this as a group. It’s still very tough, but we’re in the best position with the best shot and will do whatever we can.”
Third-place finisher and six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon is also 20 points behind, but Newgarden gets the positions based on five victory to Dixon’s two this season.
Dixon went from 16th to third in the race.
“We have to do better in qualifying,” Dixon said. “Starting 16th with no real cautions, we had to really fight today. But we’re still in the fight. On that last restart, we tried as hard as possible. We got on the podium and kudos to Honda for super easy fuel mileage today.
“Anything is possible. We’ve seen it and we have won on tiebreakers before. We won’t give up until it’s over. Ultimately, we will do everything we can to win the title.”
Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing is fourth in the standings, 39 points out of the lead and just two points head of McLaughlin. Ericsson finished 11th in Sunday’s race.
Two drivers have been mathematically eliminated from championship consideration including defending NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou and Pato O’Ward of Mexico. O’Ward finished fourth in the race in the No. 5 Chevrolet, but with McLaughlin, Power and Dixon all finishing ahead of him, he was unable to stay mathematically eligible for the championship.
“We had one chance today and we had to come out with the win to have a decent shot at it at Laguna,” O’Ward said. “But the Penske boys dominated everybody. I got into it with Will Power on a restart and I had to drive the rest of the race with a damaged car.”
McLaughlin’s victory continues a five-race streak of third at Iowa, fourth at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, second at Nashville, third at World Wide Technology Raceway and victory at Portland.
It was the ninth win of the season for Team Penske.
“I think the car felt really good in that first stint, but as the race went on, I had to concentrate what I wanted out of the car,” McLaughlin said. “We did exactly what we wanted to do this weekend. We have a shot and I’m really looking forward to it.
“Roger Penske and Tim Cindric brought me over here from SuperCars and I want to make the most of that. It’s a long way to climb, but you have to have goals. I wanted to be in the championship fight so I could go to Pebble Beach next week. I just want to play at Pebble Beach and play golf after winning the championship.”
McLaughlin scored his third career NTT IndyCar Series victory by defeating Power by 1.1792 seconds, both in Team Penske Chevrolets. He led 104 of the 110 laps in the lead.
McLaughlin started on the pole, the field got a very clean start and the Team Penske driver dominated the race.
Because of the long green flag run, the race was very straightforward.
Lundgaard pitted on Lap 48, beginning a sequence for other sin the field to make their second pit stop. Power, who was running second at the time, pitted on the following lap.
The leader, McLaughlin, pitted on Lap 49, giving Power the lead.
When Rahal pitted on Lap 51 to end the pit stop sequence, McLaughlin was back in the lead by 4.470 seconds over Power. Marcus Ericsson was third in a Honda followed by O’Ward’s Chevrolet and Lundgaard’s Honda.
On Lap 55, Newgarden and Lundgaard were racing for fourth place and Newgarden made the crossover move with his Chevrolet to take the position. That was the halfway point of the race and the top five were McLaughlin, Power, O’Ward, Newgarden and Lundgaard.
On Lap 70, McLaughlin led Power for 4.4024 seconds with O’Ward third.
Conor Daly’s No. 20 Chevrolet had a car fire that burned up the clutch, but the driver was uninjured.
Lundgaard made his final pit stop on Lap 79, but stalled his Honda engine on the way out, costing him valuable time. All three Team Penske cars pitted on Lap 80 for the final time. McLaughlin was the first out of the pits followed by Power and Newgarden.
The first caution of the race came on Lap 84 when Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Honda was punted into the Turn 1 wall by Rinus VeeKay’s No. 21 Chevrolet. That put Johnson’s Honda into the wall and out of the race. VeeKay was issued a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact by IndyCar Race Control.
It was the only four laps of the race run under caution.
During the Lap 89 restart, O’Ward hit Power, but Power kept it straight while Dixon went for third. This allowed McLaughlin to drive away from the field.
Dixon gained the position continuing his 16th to third charge in the race from where he started.
Lundgaard ran into a track sign after locking up the brakes in one of the chicanes, forcing him to drive all the way around the track before making a pit stop. That ended what had been an otherwise fine race for the driver from Denmark.
Instead, this was a great day for two drivers from the Southern Hemisphere — New Zealand’s McLaughlin and Australia’s Power.