Penske's Scott McLaughlin Wins at Mid-Ohio as Andretti Implodes

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Photo: Chris Owens / Penske Entertainment

The NTT IndyCar Series spent Independence Day weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. Those who watched could have easily forgotten that there was a race with the intrateam fireworks on track between Andretti Autosport drivers.

The race collapsed early for Arrow McLaren SP despite their great starting position. Felix Rosenqvist started the race from fourth place and worked his way up to third, but he had a terminal engine failure on lap 10 of 80. His teammate Pato O’Ward would start having issues with his drivetrain a little over ten laps later.

Penske’s Scott McLaughlin inherited the lead after O’Ward pitted. Later on in the race, O’Ward’s car failed while exiting pit road during the final round of pit stops. McLaughlin faced pressure from Ganassi’s Álex Palou throughout the race. He held off the reigning champion to take home his 2nd win of the season and his IndyCar career.

The race for the win mainly played out in the background as Andretti Autosport imploded. The long-running tension between Alexander Rossi and Romain Grosjean finally boiled over. Rossi made contact with Grosjean three times during the race. The second time the pair went off into a gravel trap. The last time Rossi hit Grosjean under caution.

Grosjean would also hit his other teammate Colton Herta. Rossi also hit the fourth Andretti driver Devlin DeFrancesco. The highest-finishing Andretti driver would be Herta in 15th. After the race, Grosjean called Rossi “an absolute idiot” while Rossi claimed the clashes were just racing incidents. It will be interesting to see how Andretti deals with their drivers at each other throats.