A 4am rise (QLD time) didn’t stop two-time Supercars Champion Scott McLaughlin from winning the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama – an online race featuring a star-studded line up of IndyCar drivers and guest drivers from around the world.
Starting 8th McLaughlin took the lead with six laps remaining after running a completely different strategy to everyone else. The result is significant given it was just his second ever online race against professional drivers.
McLaughlin finished fourth in his first ever e-race last week and this week topped the podium, beating another Aussie, Toowoomba’s Will Power who finished second.
Both are Penske drivers, Power a Penske driver in Indy, McLaughlin with DJR Team Penske in Supercars.
McLaughlin told the IndyCar on NBC booth during a celebratory lap in the No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet.
“I brought in my IndyCar engineer, Jonathan Diuguid, I’ve been working with in the States, so I give him credit,” “He put me on an awesome strategy. It was a bit easier (to calculate fuel) this week.
It was crazy. I was particularly nervous on (the Lap 15) restart (from a competition caution). The biggest thing was lapped traffic. Getting blocked.
That enabled us to get that jump in the pits because I was in clear air a long time where others weren’t. So credit to Jonathan and his strategy. He put me out front, and I was able to just bang lap times out, which was awesome.”
McLaughlin said.
Check out a video of the last lap of the race.
And now watch the overtake 6 laps from the end that won him the race.
The win came 24 hours before fellow Supercars driver Andre Heimgartner competes in the Formula 1 virtual Grand Prix for Renault, and just 3 days before Supercars begin the BP All-Star Eseries, featuring all 25 drivers from the Championship.
The Superfcars Eseries will be broadcast around the world and live on Fox Sports and Kayo.
