San Francisco Frontiers - New Zealand's McLaughlin defends Alabama IndyCar crown

The 30-year-old Kiwi driver won from the pole by outlasting Australian teammate Will Power and leading 58 of the 90 laps over a 2.3-mile, 17-turn road course at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.

McLaughlin said Penske had nothing to prove but was overjoyed at the 1-2 finish alongside Power.

"We just had to keep rolling," said McLaughlin. "We know our job. We know what we needed to do. I'm just super proud of the execution. The Chevy was so good. We just showed our pace."

McLaughlin did call it one of the top wins of his career.

"It's a good one, drove one of our best drives," he said. "Just execution and wanting to knock out the laps and bring it to the checkered flag."

Power, also punished as part of the Penske controversy, was second with Swedish rookie Linus Lundqvist third, Sweden's Felix Rosenqvist fourth and Spain's Alex Palou, the reigning series champion, in fifth.

Power admitted he did not attack McLaughlin as hard as he might have in the final laps to avoid risking a wreck to ruin both their days.

"You don't want two Penske cars out of the race with everything that has been going on," Power said. "We got back to where we needed to be."

American Colton Herta seized the season points lead on 101 to 100 for Power, 98 for Palou and 94 for New Zealand's Scott Dixon with McLaughlin 42 adrift.

McLaughlin forfeited a third-place finish in the season opener at St. Petersburg and US teammate Josef Newgarden forfeited the victory after a Long Beach tech inspection last weekend showed their cars were altered to use overtake power on starts and restarts -- against IndyCar rules.

Penske Racing said the changes were made for a pre-season engine test and mistakenly not changed back before the season began.

McLaughlin said his 1.9 seconds using the extra power came from habit and he had no idea of the car changes. Newgarden also denied knowing of the change and said his 29 seconds pushing the button were because he thought the rule had been changed, an excuse he admitted would be hard for rivals to believe.

Newgarden, a winner in three of the past eight Barber races, said Sunday before the race he had not spoken to any other driver about the matter.

- Pit-stop strategy fight -

McLaughlin grabbed the early lead with front-row neighbor Power in second, but the race soon shifted into a strategy fight.

While most cars planned for three pit stops, Palou was among several drivers adopting a two-stop strategy, hoping fuel mileage and caution flags would allow them to finish in front of McLaughlin and Power.

McLaughlin resumed the lead with 21 laps remaining when his last rival on the opposite strategy pitted, then stretched his lead over fuel-saving Palou to 32 seconds before making his final stop with 16 laps remaining.

McLaughlin and Power both refueled and returned to the track ahead of Palou and stayed 1-2 to the finish line.

The season's fourth race will be May 11 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway's road course, the final event ahead of the Indianapolis 500 oval classic on May 26.

A.Evans--SFF