{"id":59903,"date":"2021-04-19T00:42:40","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T00:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=59903"},"modified":"2021-04-19T02:58:17","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T02:58:17","slug":"mclaughlin-escapes-first-lap-indycar-carnage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=59903","title":{"rendered":"McLaughlin escapes first-lap IndyCar carnage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia's Will Power<\/a> has finished second in the season opening IndyCar race in Alabama, while Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin<\/a> narrowly avoided a first-lap crash to come home 14th.<\/p>\n

Power finished less than half a second behind Alex Palou, who scored the first win of his IndyCar career.<\/p>\n

Chaos reigned on the opening lap of the season, eliminating a number of drivers expected to contend for the championship this season.<\/p>\n

Penske driver Josef Newgarden ran wide exiting turn three, spinning him around sending the chasing pack scattering in all directions.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/rinusveekay\/status\/1383900862767013900?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

Andretti Autosport drivers Ryan Hunter-Reay and Colton Herta were left with nowhere to go and made heavy contact with Newgarden, while Felix Rosenqvist's McLaren was briefly airborne, as Carlin's Max Chilton also suffered damage.<\/p>\n

"I got loose coming over the hill and then touched the grass. I think once I touched the grass I'm basically sideways," said Newgarden, a two-time series champion and last year's runner-up. "I feel really bad for anyone who got involved in that. Obviously my mess created a bigger mess, so any of the cars that got involved I'm really sorry because it was us that tipped it off."<\/p>\n

Herta, who finished third in the championship last year, was philosophical about the early dent to his title hopes, noting that there's still 16 races remaining.<\/p>\n

\"Scott<\/p>\n

"This sucks, man, and I'm ready to get out of here," he said. "It's such a competitive year and guys are going to have bad races and guys aren't going to do well everywhere.<\/p>\n

"It obviously sucks for us because now we're on the back foot but we have plenty of races left to get back in it."<\/p>\n

Power was just 1.8 seconds behind race-leader Palou with seven laps remaining, but wasn't able to make the pass for the win.<\/p>\n

"I made one little mistake in (Turn) 9, but with the amount of Push-to-Pass I had left, it could have been pretty good," Power said. "We had to save some fuel, but I had enough to use Push-to-Pass the last two laps.<\/p>\n

"It just blew my mind how fast Alex was in that first stint. I had absolutely nothing for him. He just pulled away, so I figured he was on a three-stop race. I was getting the best lap time I could for the fuel number."<\/p>\n

\"Will<\/p>\n

The three high-profile rookies in the field all made it to the finish. Former Formula One driver Romain Grosjean, in his first race since a horror crash at the Bahrain Grand Prix last year<\/a>, was the best of the three in 10th place.<\/p>\n

McLaughlin,<\/a> who started 12th, finished 14th, and said after the race that he's still learning how to get the best out of the car.<\/p>\n

"I got held up a little mid-race, which was a little bit disappointing, I just didn't know the capacity of the car and was a bit nervous, I just wanted to get one race under my belt," McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n

"Ended up doing a reasonable move, but it just took too long."<\/p>\n

The third 'rookie', seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, was 19th.<\/p>\n

"Just a ton of learning experiences throughout the day," Johnson said. "I just can't say too many times how different this is and how specialized this craft is."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia's Will Power has finished second in the season opening IndyCar race in Alabama, while Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin narrowly avoided a first-lap crash to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59903"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59905,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59903\/revisions\/59905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}