Scott McLaughlin becomes the fourth different winner of the 2023 season

The NTT IndyCar Series held its fourth race of the season on Sunday afternoon at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama. Coming into this race, Pato O’Ward was the defending winner of this race.

This season, IndyCar has had some good races featuring Marcus Ericsson (St. Petersburg), Josef Newgarden (Texas), and Kyle Kirkwood (Long Beach) winning races this year. That would continue on Sunday.

Andretti Autosport driver Romain Grosjean won the pole for this race with a new engine after blowing the original one during practice. Starting next to him was Chip Ganassi Racing driver Alex Palou.

Romain Grosjean got off to a great start, beating Palou to keep the lead, while Pato O’Ward passed Palou for second place on the opening lap. Palou fought O’Ward a lap later to get back second place.

Both drivers were fighting hard to the point that their crew chiefs were telling them to take it easy as they had planned on a two-pit stop strategy. Both drivers settled down afterward.

Later in the race, Josef Newgarden, whom many had contending for the win, was hit on the right rear by Felix Rosenqvist as Rosenqvist spun. Newgarden thought he was getting a right rear flat and asked his crew to check the tire pressure but they told him he was good. Newgarden had issues from that point and winded up finishing 15^th.

On lap 30, Grosjean and Palou both pitted. While the rest of the field was making their pit stops, rookie driver Sting Ray Robb suffered a mechanical failure and was stopped at turn nine for the first and only caution of the race on lap 39.

Once the race resumed, it was the Grosjean and Scott McLaughlin show. The two engaged in a heated battle for first place. Another driver who moved into the battle was Will Power. On Lap 60, Grosjean made his last pit stop, followed by McLaughlin on lap 63.

Will Power was the new leader of the race. After McLaughlin made his pit stop, he beat Grosjean and managed to keep him behind. After Power pitted, McLaughlin and Grosjean resumed their heated battle.

Grosjean passed McLaughlin for the lead at turn 15. However, Grosjean drove up wide at turn five and McLaughlin took the lead and drove away with 19 laps to go. McLaughlin won his first race of the season by 1.7854 seconds over Romain Grosjean. It was the second win for Team Penske this season and McLaughlin’s fourth win of his career.

The rest of the top ten finishers were Will Power third, Pat O’Ward fourth, Alex Palou fifth, Christian Lundgaard sixth, Scott Dixon seventh, Alexander Rossi eighth, Felix Rosenqvist ninth, and Marcus Ericsson tenth.

“I call it a ‘happy driver strategy,” said McLaughlin. “I was a lot happier doing that. We went past Grosjean there on a little bit of strategy, and I feel really good about it.”

When McLaughlin was asked about his race with Grosjean, McLaughlin said, “We’re racers; you just get on with it. We talked it out man to man (after St. Petersburg), and as far as I’m concerned and he’s concerned, we race hard and fair and press on. No hard feelings between the two of us.”

“It hurts,” said Romain Grosjean after leading 57 laps and finishing second. “The three-stop never wins at Barber, but today the pits stayed open. That gave McLaughlin and Power the edge on the three-stop. Look at the two-stop (cars) behind us – 20 seconds behind us. We had an incredible car, drove really well, gave it 100 percent, but we just got unlucky with that yellow. Congrats to Scott. He deserved that win.”

“Yeah, it was an extremely good day,” said Will Power after finishing third. “When I saw everyone saving so much fuel there. We talked about doing three stops and I felt like it was better to do that and the guys made the call. It was super-fast and we got clear ahead. That was the key to get to third.”

The NTT IndyCar Series heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the month of May. Their next race is on Saturday, May 13^th on the IMS road course at 3:30 pm on NBC. Tickets for the race are available on StubHub and Viagogo.

Finishing Order: