Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin claimed his first career NTT IndyCar Series win on an oval in Saturday’s Hy-Vee Homefront 250 at Iowa Speedway.
The New Zealand native that transitioned to the series from Australia’s Supercars tour said that he’ll be calling himself an IndyCar driver moving forward.
“I was never going to call myself an IndyCar driver until I won on an oval,” McLaughlin said. “So I’m going to call myself an IndyCar driver now, if you don’t mind… I always felt like that. I felt like an open-wheel driver, but an #IndyCar driver is someone who can win on all three (oval, street, road). I get a lot of enjoyment out of ovals,” Mclaughlin said. I think they’re the backbone of the sport.”
McLaughlin paced the field for an overwhelming majority of the race, as IndyCar’s hybrid package paired with a repave that shortened the groove in corners at Iowa made it difficult for the field to pass one another.
Saturday’s race finished with 151 green-flag, lead lap passes. That’s down from a record-setting race prior to the repave in 2023, which had 1,502.
Second-place finisher Pato O’Ward shared in the frustration some had at the lack of passes on the track.
“It’s probably not up to me,” O’Ward said after being asked what should be done with any potential repave. “Who’s it up to? NASCAR? They ruined a really fantastic race.”
Josef Newgarden, who holds the career records for most laps led at Iowa as well as race wins, echoed in the sentiment, and said that passing others was flirting with disaster.
“It was a calculated risk,” Newgarden said. “You were flirting with disaster. You were risking the car any time you were trying to go around somebody.”
Sunday’s Hy-Vee One-Step 250 will begin on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. live on NBC.
NTT IndyCar Series results
Hy-Vee Homefront 250
Iowa Speedway
Sat. July 13, 2024
1. Scott McLaughlin
2. Pato O’Ward
3. Josef Newgarden
4. Scott Dixon
5. Rinus VeeKay
6. Santino Ferrucci
7. Kyle Kirkwood
8. Alexander Rossi
9. Marcus Ericsson
10. Marcus Armstrong
11. Colton Herta
12. Nolan Siegel
13. Felix Rosenqvist
14. Kyffin Simpson
15. Sting Ray Robb
16. Graham Rahal
17. Katherine Legge
18. Will Power
19. Ed Carpenter
20. Pietro Fittipaldi
21. Linus Lundqvist
22. Christian Lundgaard
23. Alex Palou
24. Romain Grojean
25. Jack Harvey
26. Augustin Canapino
27. David Malukas
