2024 Indycar Alabama Grand Prix | 5 talking points

1. Why Penske is under pressure

The scandal broke at the previous Long Beach Grand Prix but involved a rules violation that took place a full 45 days earlier, at the season-opening St. Petersburg street race. There, it was (eventually) discovered that race winner Josef Newgarden and third-placed McLaughlin had been illegally using their push-to-pass power boost on restarts and that, according to IndyCar’s statement, Team Penske had “manipulated the overtake system” to allow them to do so. Power’s car was also found to be electronically enabled to use the system when he wasn’t allowed to, and although the Australian hadn’t been found to have activated it illegally he was docked ten points, but was allowed to keep what turned out to be second place once Newgarden and McLaughlin were disqualified, behind promoted winner, McLaren’s Pato O’Ward.

At Barber, the storm unsurprisingly raged on. Here is IndyCar’s most famous team, whose patron Roger Penske also owns the series, being caught in a slam-dunk cheating scandal that no one in the organisation could side-step or dismiss with a coherent excuse. Awkward is an understatement. Newgarden held an emotional press conference in which he denied being a “liar” and gave an explanation most of his peers considered flimsy. He said he had thought the system could be used on restarts, as it had been at the non-championship race held at the Thermal Club after the St. Pete round. Really? Top racing drivers always know the rules they’re supposed to run to, especially on such vital technicalities – don’t they?

Roger Penske gathered the other team principals for an impromptu and informal private meeting in Barber in an attempt to calm the storm. But the fact is the integrity of everyone at the team, and its drivers – particularly Newgarden – is now under question. It’s a serious blow to the series and will cast a shadow over the whole season.

2. How McLaughlin won at Barber

In the circumstances, a dominant and legitimate performance was the only answer that could be acceptable to Team Penske at a race circuited dubbed as the motor sport equivalent of golf’s Augusta National course used for the Masters.

Kiwi McLaughlin started from pole position and ran the optimum three-stop strategy to take his fifth IndyCar race victory and second consecutive at Barber. He led 58 of the total 90 laps around the 2.3-mile circuit, in a typically jumbled race involving a range of different tyre and fuel strategies, complicated further by a number of safety car interludes. McLaughlin dropped as low as 17^th during one such interruption when Alexander Rossi lost a wheel immediately following a pitstop. But once the strategies cycled through the former Australian Supercars champion assumed the lead once more.

A late restart kept him on his toes, when rookie Christian Rasmussen slid off the track and stalled with five laps to go. But McLaughlin calmly stroked away from Power to take the chequered flag to bring smiles to a team that most in the paddock won’t be feeling particularly pleased for. Meanwhile, Newgarden qualified eighth and struggled to an anonymous 16^th in the race. In the circumstances, perhaps that was for the best.

3. Palou fades on a two-stopper

Reigning champion Alex Palou was out of luck and out of sorts in Alabama. He only qualified tenth, then used a two-stop strategy to rise into contention and take up the lead. But the yellow flag interruptions shot his chances which relied heavily on judicious fuel saving to allow the Spaniard to make it to the chequered flag. Inspiration taken, then, from Chip Ganassi Racing team-mate Scott Dixon, who sipped fuel to an amazing strategical win in Long Beach a week earlier.

But the fuel-saving strategy, which Palou thought could carry him to victory, left him powerless in the closing stages. New team-mate Linus Lundqvist picked him off before the Rasmussen late-race moment to claim his first IndyCar podium, and Palou lost another place to Meyer Shank’s Felix Rosenqvist to finish only fifth.

4. ‘Georgina’ the star of the show

There was a moment of light relief – although it was also one of the most bizarre sights we’re ever likely to see at a race track. For a moment, it looked as if a woman had jumped from a pedestrian bridge onto the track during the race. But initial alarm, including from a shocked Santino Ferrucci, quickly turned to laughter when it dawned the figure was actually a mannequin called Georgina! She has been something of a fixture at the circuit founded by the eccentric George Barber, but ‘lost her footing’ during the race and dropped onto the side of the circuit. Luca Ghiotto won’t forget his IndyCar debut in a hurry – particularly as his Dale Coyne entry clipped the doll and one of her hands off… After the race, a grinning McLaughlin was pictured hand in hand sitting beside the injured lady, who appeared mostly intact following her fall – apart from that smashed right arm, of course!

5. How they stand

The result, combined with the St Pete reshuffle, has changed the complexion of the championship standings. The consistent Colton Herta finds himself at the top of the points table, but just one ahead of Power. Palou, chasing his third IndyCar title in four years, is third just two further back with veteran Dixon fourth and Rosenqvist fifth.

McLaughlin is down in ninth, but these are still early days for the 2024 season, just three (championship) rounds in. Now we head, of course, into May, the biggest month of IndyCar’s year. First up comes the race on the Indianapolis road course on 11^th May, before full attention is trained on the Big One: the Indianapolis 500, which takes place on 26^th May. Newgarden will be planning to put Penske’s dark troubles fully in the past with a second consecutive run to victory at the 500 – but as ever at this stage, all bets are off when it comes to what might play out at The Brickyard. The disarming controversy will only heighten the tension and keep our eyes glued to the self-proclaimed greatest race in auto racing.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.