INDYCAR

Scott McLaughlin survived accidents to win the virtual Indy 175 and become Champion
Scott McLaughlin, the current champion of the Australian Supercars, achieved a surprise victory after several beats had cleared much of the peloton ahead of him in the final laps. The aspirant was happy with the result, but many others were disappointed with the way the race took place.
The race started at a very good pace, with the riders giving themselves a lot of space from the start. This lasted until the fifth lap, when Alex Palou was inadvertently slipping to the inner wall while running 3-wide. The resulting collisions with Tony Kanaan and Jack Harvey brought the first yellow flag of the day.
Approximately one third of the platoon took advantage of the yellow flag to come in and put on new tires and refuel. In the end, the different pit strategies did not play as important a role as in the past few weeks.
Once the action resumed, it continued for most of the rest of the race. Will Power, Lando Norris and James Davison were all regular leaders until the middle of the race, and the strong vacuum led to many overtaking positions. While the final pit-stop round for many drivers was going on, a small miscalculation by Scott Speed ​​caused a three car accident that brought the yellow one with 15 laps remaining.
Yellow flags tend to bring more yellow flags, and that was the case this time also with another accident involving 2019 IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden, occurring just a few laps later. By this time, Simon Pagenaud had led the way with Graham Rahal, Felix Rosenqvist and Lando Norris right behind.
When the race returned to the green flag, with nine laps remaining, the action became more frantic and the drivers were unable to control themselves, dodging and weaving with each other on virtually every corner.
Norris made some bold moves to take the lead from fourth place in just over a lap, but in doing so, he made a 3-wide between turns 1 and 2, pushing Rahal towards Pagenaud, who hit the wall hard. The 2019 Indy 500 winner would not be able to add a virtual victory in Indianapolis to his resume today.
At this point, there were all of McLaren's top three, with Norris, Askew and O’Ward running from end to end. Marcus Ericsson used the strong vacuum on the opposite straight and quickly joined the group fighting for first place.
With only three laps left, Norris came out of turn 4 and hit Pagenaud's rear now with a lap delay, walking slowly after repairs. The young F1 star hit hard against the outer wall, also putting an end to his hopes of a good finish.
The rest of the main group managed to continue, with Ericsson doing great maneuvers and taking his red and white Huski Chocolate machine forward on the last lap. Shortly after being relegated to second place, O'Ward tried to make room inside the final corner. There was not enough space to accommodate the two cars and they ended up turning towards the outside wall, leaving the rest of the platoon to occupy the best places.
The action is not over yet. A few hundred meters before the finish line, it looked like Askew was going to win with a small margin over Santino Ferrucci. But in the last second effort to force the way to first place, and, apparently forgetting that he was not driving a touring car, Ferrucci hit Askew hard.
The contact caused them to both rotate and hit the wall, resulting in McLaughlin and Conor Daly, who were competing for 10th place just one lap earlier, quickly passing to occupy the first two places. Ferrucci and Askew finished third and fourth, respectively, crossing the line while still in the process of colliding.
McLaughlin, due to his consistent result and two victories, ended up taking the lead at the end of the virtual series disputed in iRacing. The race for points has no official effect in real competitions, but there was a lot of effort from the drivers up and down the grid to get the best possible results.
Although the iRacing series was a placeholder for fun replacing real racing, many drivers and sponsors took it seriously and it resulted in more than a few hurt feelings. And the number of drivers who had a bad race today did not help the situation.
Fortunately, the pilots have a few weeks to take a deep breath. This was the last iRacing challenge event and the first real race is scheduled for five weeks from June 6 at the Texas Motor Speedway. Victor D. Berto-Brazil