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SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN No. 3 XPEL CHEVROLET
START: 4TH
FINISH: 2ND
POINTS: 3RD
RACE RUNDOWN: Scott McLaughlin and the No. 3 XPEL Chevrolet team had their eyes on the $500,000 first-place check in Sunday’s $1 Million Challenge at the Thermal Club before finishing in the second position. A fixture at the top of the charts all weekend, McLaughlin finished second in the first heat race to line up fourth for the 20-lap main event. He quickly moved into the second position behind Alex Palou when the finale began and finished the first half of the race in the same position. After saving some of his Firestone tires for the last 10 laps, McLaughlin tried to quickly get around Palou when racing resumed but was unable to make any maneuver work. From there he was able to easily hold onto the second position to grab the $350,000 check for the runner-up.
MCLAUGHLIN’S THOUGHTS: “It all started I think with my heat race. I think I had a really good start. I was lucky not to get caught up with the kerfuffle with Grosjean and settled into a rhythm. Felt like we had a good speed in the heat race. In the final race, we were pretty conservative, looking after our tires at the start, being smart, knowing there’s guys that were going crazily slow, almost too slow I feel like, from a racing perspective. At the start of race two, I tried to have a go at Alex, but ultimately he was just a little bit faster with that clean air. It was always going to be clean air was going to be king this weekend. I settled in, tried to maximize what we had today with the XPEL Chevy. That was second today.”
