1. This might have been the final IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway for the near future, but this was a fitting finish. Scott McLaughlin was masterful from the front row of the grid. He led from the drop of the green flag and proceeded to pull away. For a moment, it appeared McLaughlin would run away with this race. Within 70 laps his lead was up to 13 seconds. But he didn't have to run away with the race, and he was smart with the lead. McLaughlin paced himself. He controlled his lead and took it down to six seconds on his own.
McLaughlin was the man to beat, and he saved fuel when necessary. He got his car into the final pit window and emerged as the man in control. Everything was going his way, and then he caught traffic on the final lap and Josef Newgarden swung around on the outside of turn four and Newgarden won the race by 0.0669 seconds.
McLaughlin did nothing wrong all race, and Newgarden was meticulous, just as he was when he won his first Texas race in 2019. In that 2019 race, Newgarden drove to leapfrog the order through pit cycles. That was the case today. Before the first round of pit stops, Newgarden was in the middle of the top ten. After the first round he was second. He wasn't afraid to trade positions for fuel mileage and it led to him in second place in the dying laps.
It appeared McLaughlin had the race won and strategically drove to his advantage, lapping Colton Herta into turn one with four laps to go and putting Herta between him and Newgarden. It felt like race over. The lead had been at its largest since the final round of pit stops finished.
But Newgarden went on the charge and with McLaughlin catching the tail end of the field in the final corner, Newgarden had one move. Newgarden took to the outside, a place where passes kind of worked but was far from 100% success rate today and Newgarden had the momentum to beat McLaughlin to the line.
You couldn't ask for more from a race. The top two were nose-to-tail in the closing laps and on the final lap there was a move for the lead. It was brilliant.
2. Let's nip this in the bud: This might have been the final Texas race and it was... good? Bad? Great? I am not sure. The upper lane still wasn't there, but there was an extra half a lane, and you could run a little off the bottom, but it was still hair raising for two cars to go side-by-side. There is ground between pack racing and two cars being able to run next to each other in the corner without feeling like an accident is going to happen. IndyCar wasn't close to the middle of it in this race.
But this was better than last year. IndyCar's seven-car upper lane session helped. I think if the entire field or at least two-thirds of the field had been out there it could have been much better. I don't think it would have flipped the track into IndyCar's favor. The surface at Texas is ruined, and it is not even five years old. But considering where the track has been since 2020, this was the best IndyCar has done with it.
It was better, somewhat good, but still flawed.
3. Marcus Ericsson finally had a good result at Texas. He should have had a top five finish in at least two of the last three races at this track only for pit lane problems to go extinguish his hopes of a good finish. Ericsson made some passes today and looked comfortable. He didn't quite have the pace of the top two, but he was close. He made up some ground late to finish 1.3537 seconds back. He was there if the leaders had collided. Either way, third is what he needed.
4. Will Power was fourth and that is kind of where he was all race. Third or fourth. There was brief moment in the second half of the race where it felt Power was about to take over and have a dominant finish lead to another oval victory. I feel like that is how at least two of his Pocono victories happened. But Power settled back into fourth and it was just a good day for him. Not great, but still a strong result for him and Team Penske.
5. Scott Dixon was fifth and had a similar race to Power. Dixon was just fifth or sixth the entire time. I was expecting him to maybe use strategy late and jump from fifth into the fight for the victory, as he is known to do. He did have to fight for that fifth-place finish and pass a teammate to get it.
6. And that teammate was Jimmie Johnson, who scores his first top ten finish in IndyCar finishing sixth. Johnson fulfilled the adage to finish first one must first finish. He was five spots off of first, but this is the exact race Johnson needed in his IndyCar oval debut. Many drivers were in accidents today and Johnson benefitted from that. He didn't take an unnecessary chance. Every move he made was calculated. He spent the opening third of the race outside the top twenty. He didn't light the world on fire driving up the field. It is a good result, and he was encouragingly competitive, but as we saw in qualifying, there is more pace to find. However, he did a great job today.
7. We have had many anonymous days from Álex Palou since he joined Chip Ganassi Racing. This was one of them, as he finished seventh. He did nothing wrong, but he was never quite a contender. It is still a solid points day. Championship runs need days like this. He was the worst Ganassi driver on the day, but far from being disappointing.
8. Simon Pagenaud was saving fuel late and it cost him a possible top five finish. Eighth is a good race, but it sums up his weekend, slightly off from where it felt Pagenaud should be. He was the fastest in the opening practice and then qualified 15th. There are plenty of positives to draw, but also plenty of areas to polish for the Frenchman and Meyer Shank Racing.
9. Jack Harvey was ruled unfit to start this race after his practice accident yesterday, so Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing drafted in Santino Ferrucci to fill in the #45 Honda this weekend. With only a handful of sighting laps in the morning, Ferrucci had another impressive oval race. He took his time and stayed out of incidents to finish ninth. He just has a feel for ovals.
10. Rounding out the top ten was Rinus VeeKay, but the team got the strategy wrong. It stopped right when it thought the final pit window opened. The only problem is the pace was not in VeeKay's favor and the team had to save more fuel than expected. He somehow made it to the finish and held onto the top ten, but he looked like one of the few drivers who could challenge McLaughlin. This is encouraging heading to the Indianapolis 500 in May, but the team has to make sure the car can fight at the end of the race. That wasn't the case today.
11. David Malukas had a good race. He made laps and Dale Coyne had him on an interesting alternate strategy. He made five pit stops and made his final stop with exactly 50 laps to go. It worked out that not only did Malukas lead three laps, but he was just ahead of Scott McLaughlin for the final stint, and Malukas had fresh tires and could drive hard. He could stay on the lead lap and chase down the field. He just missed out on a top ten result, but for his first large oval everyone should be satisfied.
12. Andretti Autosport is no longer a great team. The IndyCar "Big Three" is now a "Big Two." This was a disaster today. Colton Herta took a similar strategy to VeeKay and he had to save more fuel. He ended up a lap down in 12th. Herta should have been competing for a top five finish. The team made a bad strategy call again, just as it did with Alexander Rossi at St. Petersburg. Throw on top of Herta's missed opportunity the mechanical retirements for Romain Grosjean and Rossi, with Rossi out of the race after only 11 laps, and Andretti Autosport is a mess. Its IndyCar results should give Formula One pause because it is clearly a distracted organization and is far from excelling.
13. Ed Carpenter did nothing and finished 13th. This was a glorified test session before the Indianapolis 500.
14. J.R. Hildebrand tried a few different things and it got him in contention. For a moment a top ten result looked possible, but that wasn't meant to be. It was another smart race from Hildebrand, which is what he is known for doing. A.J. Foyt Racing has some work to do, but Hildebrand is a key asset.
15. We will cover both Arrow McLaren SP drivers here: Both drivers blew their marks on pit stops under the lap 99 caution for Takuma Sato getting into the wall. Patricio O'Ward hit his front left tire changer and had to serve a penalty. Later, Felix Rosenqvist suffered a mechanical failure. Both drivers should have been in the top ten, possibly the top five. At best, O'Ward was 15th. Not the start to the season AMSP would have liked.
16. Let's run through some driver: Callum Ilott was only a lap down in 16th, but I think he wasn't the most comfortable out there. He did well, but at the end of multiple stints his lap average were below 200 mph, but Ilott was hitting that range quicker than others. I am not sure he has entirely digested ovals. Dalton Kellett did nothing and was 17th. Conor Daly had two pit lane speeding penalties and was 18th. Keep shooting your toes off, Daly, and see where that gets you.
17. There is a minor point of controversy in this race and that is with about 15 laps to go, Christian Lundgaard brushed the wall exiting turn four while the leaders were about to lap him. It was a healthy lick, but no caution came. Takuma Sato arguably had a lighter brush with the wall in turn two and a caution came out for the Sato incident about 130 laps earlier.
I expected the caution to come out when Lundgaard hit the wall. It was clear he hit the wall, but nothing came. When Sato brushed the wall, I thought it was going to stay green because it was a kiss, but he was still able to drive the car, didn't lose much speed, and could have easily gotten to the pit lane with no debris coming off the car.
It was questionable and all we ask is for IndyCar to be consistent.
Officiating aside, Lundgaard did a good job today. He was set to finish somewhere in the top fifteen. It wasn't the finish he would have liked, but the day was promising.
18. Takuma Sato was the first victim of questionable driving from Devlin DeFrancesco. In this case, I think DeFrancesco just walked up the track and Sato just happened to be there. The light contact forced Sato into the barrier. Then DeFrancesco got loose under Kyle Kirkwood and Kirkwood couldn't hold onto the top lane and slammed the barrier. Kirkwood said it wasn't on DeFrancesco and he just ran out of grip. That is how it looked. Nothing wrong from DeFrancesco, he just happened to be the other driver involved.
The final incident is 100% on DeFrancesco. The Canadian attempted to make it three-wide on the inside of Graham Rahal and Hélio Castroneves entering turn three at lap 129, just after the halfway point. DeFrancesco was below the white line in the turn. It was always going to be an accident. It was a dumb move. He was never going to make it stick. It eliminated all three drivers, and it is a shame DeFrancesco couldn't have been smarter.
As for Rahal and Castroneves, with how Ferrucci's race played out, perhaps Rahal could have been competing for a top ten spot. Castroneves looked good at the start and then got stuck in the middle of the field.
19. Kyle Kirkwood had a great first 114 laps. He went off strategy early, stopping under the lap 12 caution when Alexander Rossi had to be towed back to pit lane. With fresh tires, Kirkwood moved into ninth within the first 15 laps from the lap 16 restart. He looked ready for a top ten push, and he was finding grip in the higher groove. Unfortunately, that groove wasn't that wide, and he was a smidge higher than he could go when to the outside of DeFrancesco.
Kirkwood has some great support around him. Sébastien Bourdais was on his timing stand at St. Petersburg and J.R. Hildebrand is the kind of teammate you want on ovals. But the best thing is Kirkwood sounded confident even after the accident. The car was comfortable for him, and confidence is not something we have regularly heard from Foyt drivers on ovals in recent seasons. We are all hopeful Kirkwood can have a good season for IndyCar's cellar dweller.
20. Romain Grosjean and Alexander Rossi both broke down. We touched upon it above. Rossi was out of it before it got started. Rossi's only contributions was jumping the start, another retched oval start in an IndyCar race, but that is a story for another day. Seeing how Herta finished, I have little hope Rossi's day was going to be much greater. Maybe Rossi could have pulled out a ninth-place result, but he at least deserved the chance to compete today and all he got was 11 laps. Damn.
As for Grosjean, he looked ok. He was in the middle of the pack, not really showing any potential, but maybe he could have had the car in position for the final laps.
21. And then we get another three weeks until the next race. It will be Long Beach. We at least are waiting with a great finish on our minds.
