1. It was somewhat of a make-up for yesterday, but after a variety of strategies and a late caution played out, Scott McLaughlin ended up the winner of the second race of the IndyCar doubleheader from Milwaukee. With his championship hopes slim, McLaughlin had to win today. That was the least he had to do to remain alive for the championship heading to Nashville.
Win and hope from some help.
McLaughlin got both, but just not enough of the latter. He won but even with Álex Palou's battery issues that caused him to finish 29 laps down, Palou ended up 50 points ahead of McLaughlin when this race ended. Technically, McLaughlin could still win the championship, but that would require Palou not showing up to Nashville. That would also require McLaughlin winning the finale, not an easy feat in its own right, but Palou will take the green flag in two weeks and McLaughlin will at best finish a point shy of a championship.
It is an accomplishment for McLaughlin to be this close. Remember, he was disqualified from the St. Petersburg season opener after finishing third due to Team Penske's push-to-pass system manipulation, losing 35 points. Give those 35 points back and McLaughlin is right there entering the finale in what would be almost a toss-up for the championship.
McLaughlin has won three times this season including twice on ovals. Every year he has made great strides. There is plenty to be proud about after this season and this race.
2. Let's cover the championship picture because it will go to the finale. Álex Palou suffered a battery issue on the pace laps. He was unable to make the start of the race and ended up losing nearly 30 laps once his car was fixed. It played well for Will Power, who led early, but in the middle of the race when Power had been shuffled back in a pit cycle, Power spun coming to a restart. There was minimal front wing damage, but the pit stop for repairs still trapped him a lap down.
Power was able to get back onto the lead lap after the final caution for Sting Ray Robb's accident in turn two, but Power didn't take any risks for another two or four or six points. Power took tenth and took ten points out of the deficit to Palou. It will be 33 points between Palou and Power entering the Nashville season finale.
All Palou will need is a ninth-place finish to clinch the championship. Power has been here before, but on the reverse side, in Palou's shoes, most of the time. This will be the eighth time Power will enter a season finale with a chance to win a championship. The first three times Power was the leader and lost the title. In two of those, it appeared unthinkable for Power to lose it and it went against him.
Palou won the 2021 title with Patricio O'Ward as a challenger. Today's result wasn't because of anything Palou did wrong. Only three times this season has Palou finished outside the top ten. The advantage is in Palou's favor, but Power will be there and keep the Catalan driver honest.
3. Back to the race results, Scott Dixon went off strategy mid-race and did not stop under one of the cautions while the leaders did and that is what put Power in the middle of the top ten. As good as fresh tires were today, track position still mattered. Alexander Rossi stayed out with Dixon and led, and those two held their ground despite having 20-plus lap older tires.
The key was having traffic in-between them and the likes of McLaughlin, Power and company. The tires mattered, but if you had buffers in-between, you could stay at the front, and it helped Rossi and Dixon. What cost them was they both got stuck in traffic when they came in for that eventual pit stop. When McLaughlin answered their pit stops with an immediate dive to the pit lane, McLaughlin made up the ground and the positions.
Dixon looked set for a top five finish, but the Robb caution brought everyone to pit lane to put on what ever least used worn tires they had. Dixon made up a spot there and then took second on the restart from Rossi. Dixon pushed McLaughlin, but McLaughlin had done enough for victory.
In his 401st start, Dixon still showed he has it. Any concerns about age and slowing after a spell of rough results before this race have been quelled for the moment. Dixon's qualifying form isn't there and we should maybe talk about that, but when it comes to the race, he still has what it takes.
4. Colton Herta made a bold choice on strategy to run long on his penultimate stint and then stop first for his final stop and hopefully gap the leaders and have an advantage to defend in the closing laps. It worked at the start. Herta went long and did not lose significant ground. He was the first to stop in the final pit cycle and when the rest of the leaders stopped, Herta had over an eight-second lead.
The problem was McLaughlin chewed away at that gap in no time. There was only a ten-lap difference between the final stops with Herta coming earlier. It felt like if it had been a 20-lap difference, Herta would have been in trouble during the final laps. With a ten-lap difference, it felt like Herta held a little more of an advantage, but Herta could not make lap time while McLaughlin kept clicking off laps a half-second quicker.
It wasn't close and when McLaughlin took the lead, it looked like it was game over. A caution made it interesting, but it was bound to be a walkaway.
The Herta made the right choice to roll the dice. For whatever reason, the balance was not there after that stop to hold off McLaughlin longer. I don't know if there was a little more fuel saving going on because Herta did stop ten laps earlier, but that should not have been that much of a factor. McLaughlin had the better car though Herta had a good car today. The team is there on ovals, but it is just missing something.
5. Santino Ferrucci makes it a double fourth-place finish weekend as Ferrucci was fourth again. Every time you watch Ferrucci and his aggression, you think it will eventually bite him, and it doesn't. You are expecting that one oval race where he goes just over the edge and slaps the barrier or hits another car, and it hasn't happened yet. I have written this every year after Indianapolis, at some point you think he will go over and it will not be his day but he keeps making it through without any issues. If it hasn't happened yet, it is getting harder to believe it will happen.
He definitely didn't make many friends this weekend with his moves low on corner entry and then sliding up through the middle of the corner. The problem for everyone else is they all back out and let Ferrucci be aggressive. None of them want contact to end their race so they back and live to fight another day, but Ferrucci gets the position. It is only going to stop when Ferrucci loses out. Until that happens, Ferrucci will keep driving forward and getting respectable oval results.
6. Marcus Ericsson somewhat stole a top five finish today. Ericsson spent a good amount of the race in the top ten, but a lap down. He got the wave around after the Robb accident, and because of the wave around rules, Ericsson was back on the lead lap and then got to make his final stop. This allowed him to make up three spots and get into the top five.
I don't think Ericsson spent a lap in the top five until about three to go. It is a good result he needed, especially after yesterday and this trying season.
7. Robbed of that top five finish was Alexander Rossi, who probably should have been on the podium, but Rossi fell like a rock on that final restart. He was second. My guess is the tires his crew put on were older than the rest of the field and Rossi could not do anything with them in the sprint to the finish.
Rossi led a good portion of the race because he did not stop under one of the cautions and passed up on a short stint. I thought that was the right choice. Tires mattered but a 20-lap advantage wasn't that significant, especially if there was traffic put between you and the rest of the cars on the lead lap. It was a good day for Rossi, but there he is in sixth again. Not really all that close to a victory.
8. Rinus VeeKay ran the same strategy as Herta and it got him seventh. VeeKay was good over this weekend. The result came today unlike yesterday. He was never pushing for a top five or looked like a threat, but he had enough for a top ten result. The problem with VeeKay's end to this season is he has five top ten finishes in the last seven races and he is stuck in a spot of succeeding with a team where he has never finished better than 12th in the championship.
VeeKay must want more, and though Ed Carpenter Racing is getting top ten finishes now, we have five seasons worth of data to point that these results are seldom. But VeeKay is in a spot where he could probably be convinced that next time will be different and stick around because things are going in the right direction now. He should be smart and recognize there is no belief it will remain the same or continue to improve into next season.
9. Kyle Kirkwood spent about 85% of this race as one of the first cars a lap down and by avoiding problems he ended up finishing eighth and on the lead lap. Kirkwood didn't have the pace of his teammates. It wasn't an impressive day by any sense, but Kirkwood got a good result and that is something we do not expect from him on ovals. He ran all 250 laps and that is an achievement. All three Andretti Global cars were in the top ten after none finished better than 12th yesterday. Progress!
10. One day, Romain Grosjean is mad at the world. The next day, he is finishing ninth. Grosjean was on the same strategy as Herta and it definitely netted him a few extra positions. When Grosjean is in the right mood and not driving like a fool, he can get Juncos Hollinger Racing into the top ten. But on the days where he only gets seven hours and 50 minutes of sleep and not eight hours of sleep, the world collapses in on itself and he cannot do better than 16th. That is what you get with Romain Grosjean. One out of every three results is something worth celebrating.
11. Let's go back to Will Power for a second because he finished tenth, but for a good portion of this race Power was in position to take the championship lead or at least leave within ten points of Palou.
I feared Power would get too conservative and it would cost him. I don't want to say that definitely happened, but he lost spots on the restart prior to his spin. He did not want to get caught in anything and he was put in a position where someone could ruin his day. Then he basically ruined his day all by himself.
It can be hairy throttling up mid-corner and these cars are twitchy, but Power was the only one to spin in such a scenario all weekend. He kept it mostly out of the barrier other than grazing his front wing, but then the team botched the repairs. They changed tires, understandably so, but then sent him without changing the wing when it was cleared eschewed. It wasn't the worst misalignment ever, but it was likely going to be a detriment to the car. He ran another two laps under caution before coming in the lap before going green and that is how he lost his lap.
The team should have changed the wing the first time. Don't screw around in that situation and wonder if a slightly damaged wing would cost performance. Put on a properly aligned wing. Take the time on one stop to get the car together and then get back out there. It was confusing how a Team Penske crew seemed so uncertain in a spot where it was clear what should have been done.
If Power does not spin or if Power does spin and the team makes all the repairs the first time and he remains on the lead lap, I don't think he wins the race, but I know he finishes better than tenth. I think he finishes in the top five, maybe on the podium but no worse than fifth. That is ten points sacrificed today.
A 23-point gap would still require some work but it is a lot better than 33 points.
12. This was an exhausting race in the first ten laps, and none of those were green. We're going to power through here.
13. Felix Rosenqvist was 11th. It is good but we must see more from Rosenqvist and MSR. This team wasn't close to finishing 11th last season. Now it is regularly there or at least in that neighborhood, but Rosenqvist and MSR are always qualifying in the top ten. This team should have more top ten finishes. David Malukas had an electrical issue on lap 63 effectively kill his race before it really got going. Malukas was able to completed 126 laps in a free test session and finish 22nd.
14. I don't know how Christian Lundgaard finished 12th. None of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing cars were good. Pietro Fittipaldi retired after 181 laps due to a mechanical issue. I think they just parked the car. Graham Rahal was run over by Christian Rasmussen on lap 125, but Rahal's day wasn't all that peachy before then. Lundgaard took a terrible car and finished ninth and 12th with it in consecutive days. If he can do that at RLLR, Lundgaard might just win a championship at McLaren.
15. Kyffin Simpson wasn't a nuisance today and he finished two laps down in 13th. Good for him.
16. It was a great day for Dale Coyne Racing because it was a double top fifteen day as Jack Harvey was 14th and Katherine Legge was 15th. No other team would celebrate this but Coyne should. Harvey ran long early and had a stint in top ten. They had to do something different. With the number of cars that had trouble, DCR was bound to get one car in the top fifteen. It isn't great but it could be much worse.
17. Christian Rasmussen has not made many friends this season. It feels like every four races someone is calling out his driving. Some of it is justified criticism. Today was one of those days. Rasmussen drilled Rahal into turn three. He is developing but there is a lot he should clean up if he gets a sophomore season.
Let's cover Conor Daly here because Daly's third place finish in the first Milwaukee race appeared to have been wasted when Daly was parked on pit lane due to gearbox issues today. The car was repaired and somehow Daly only lost a point to Rasmussen and the #20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet. It felt like the pendulum was going to swing completely against the #78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet in the Leader Circle battle early in this race. That wasn't the case and it will be advantage Daly heading to Nashville.
18. Sting Ray Robb had two incidents today. Robb spun exiting turn two on lap 113. Then he slammed the turn two barrier on lap 228. It will be fascinating to see what David Malukas does in this car because Santino Ferrucci is on the verge of finishing in the top ten of the championship driving for A.J. Foyt Racing. I don't know if Foyt can have two cars in the top ten of the championship, but it appears it could have two competitive entries.
19. Of all the times for Álex Palou to have a battery issue at the start of a race, it was the penultimate race of the season when he has a legitimate chance to clinch a second consecutive championship and third title in four years.
Palou still holds serve entering Nashville, and after what happened today and knowing his track record, you must believe he will do all that is necessary to claim the title in two week's time. Palou did nothing wrong today! He didn't overdrive the car and hit the barrier. He didn't speed entering pit lane and then speed again serving that penalty. He didn't plow over two cars on a waved off start. The car failed underneath him before the race even got started.
I know they say, "Hollywood couldn't even script this" but this felt like a script. The dominant driver has something go wrong before the race even started and all he could do was drive around and run as many laps as possible to make up ground. He eased the bleeding today when it appeared set to be much, much worse.
20. Let's cover Arrow McLaren because both Patricio O'Ward and Nolan Siegel had gearbox issues end their races after 87 laps and 24 laps respectively. We have seen this number of mechanical issues in a race in a long time, but it was a variety of issues. It was gearbox issues for Daly, O'Ward and Siegel. Palou had the battery issue and Malukas' issue also appeared to be mechanical.
21. Do you want to talk about the first attempt at a green flag start? It was waved off and it felt like it was waved off at the last possible minute. Linus Lundqvist plowed into the back of Marcus Armstrong, who collided with the back of Josef Newgarden, and this ended Armstrong and Newgarden's races. Lundqvist got a penalty but a drive-through was not enough.
First, the start should have never been waved off. Just let them go. It was said the cars at the back were not packed up. Who cares? Who cares if the three Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing cars, which have all been slower than molasses all weekend, and Kyffin Simpson are strangling at the back. The decision to wave it off and wave it off that late caused the incident.
Second, race control is too involved and the action at Gateway are on everyone's mind. There is too much thinking and not enough doing. They are over-scrutinizing starts, restarts, etc. We saw some of it at Iowa when guys were being penalized for not remaining single-file. There is almost too much interference. Set the rules and throw the green flag. If there is an infraction, penalize the cars, but don't dick around with what is a proper start or restart. Stop trying to orchestrate something beautiful because there hasn't been a beautiful start or restart in an IndyCar race in nearly 30 years.
Then in this race, you have Scott Dixon to the inside of a lapped car at a restart and it was never mentioned. It gets really involved and then there is a moment where it looks like a driver has committed an infraction and it is never discussed.
For too fucking long, IndyCar has let starts and restarts be a free-for-all on ovals. I don't like that every start and restart is just a 27 drivers clustered on top of one another. One way to avoid these incidents is to spread the grid out. It is absurd that everyone is just stacked together with no margin for error. And then everyone wonders why when one guy gets it wrong, six guys are suddenly in an incident.
We have been talking about this issue for years. Like its scheduling, IndyCar has done nothing. I don't think it is going to change now because if hasn't changed already, why would this be the straw that breaks the camel's back?
22. Lundqvist should have been parked. One way to decrease these kind of incidents on starts and restarts is to punish dopey driving. There is almost never an accident within the first two or three or five laps of a race that is understandable. Any driver that has an incident within the first five or ten laps should be parked. Make it that simple and then drivers will change their behavior.
Lundqvist should have been parked. He could have been back home in Indianapolis before the race even ended. He ended up retiring anyway after slapping the barrier exiting turn four. Coincidentally, Lundqvist's retirement is effectively what eliminated McLaughlin from that championship. Without that retirement, Palou finished 20th and McLaughlin has a chance at claiming the Astor Cup in Nashville.
It was a shame for Armstrong because each time he has started third this season he has been in an opening lap accident. I really wanted to see what he could do.
As for Josef Newgarden, this has been the season from hell. Newgarden did nothing wrong. This is the fifth time he has finished worse than 20th in 2024, and it was the second consecutive race. It has been a strange year for Newgarden, but even when he does nothing wrong, he gets into trouble. The final race is in his backyard. Once we are through that race, I bet he will be glad for the offseason.
23. Milwaukee performed well. The racing was great. The crowd was better than expected on both days. Next year there will be only one Milwaukee race so the crowd must look better in 2025. This is IndyCar at its best on a short oval. This is why it hurt so much to see Iowa massacred with a hack job re-pave, which will not be fixed for 2025.
I watch this and think IndyCar should be on the phone with Loudon and Richmond. Both have open dates now that NASCAR only goes once a year. I think we would all appreciate spring trips to Virginia and New Hampshire or at least early summer races. There aren't that many flat ovals and short tracks out there anymore. Nobody is building racetracks let alone building ovals. There are so few options out there but IndyCar should maximize it potential and bring these races to the people.
There are at least 45,000 people who will not have a spring Richmond NASCAR Cup race to attend next year. IndyCar should not hesitate to fill that void and attempt to attract those people. That is a strategy and IndyCar has nothing to lose attempting it. It likely will only gain stepping up while NASCAR steps away.
As much as we were all in a piss, poor mood when this weekend started, we should all be feeling a little better now, even if we are all far from dandy.
24. Two weeks until the season is over. Enjoy the final off-weekend.
