Same tune plays for McLaughlin in Music city, van der Drift claims victory in Thailand: Your week in motorsport

Chris van der Drift wins in Thailand

Kiwi, Chris van der Drift has claimed victory in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia series at Chang International Circuit in Buriram, Thailand.

It was a great start for the Kiwi driving for Team Shanghai Yonda in Round 7 of the Carrera Asia series, grabbing the lead into the first corner and held on throughout to take his first victory of the season. Starting from the front row van der Drift managed to pull ahead of Florian Latorre, the championship leader and pole-sitter, at the beginning of the race. Meanwhile fellow Kiwi, Reid Harker, started from fifth, quickly moved up to second place by Turn 2 on the first lap.

A Safety Car on lap 4 brought the field back together and Harker received a 5-second penalty for exceeding track limits and gaining an advantage.

Van der Drift was able to extend his lead over the field upon the restart, while Harker had to defend his position from Latorre. As the race progressed, Latorre struggled to gain ground and eventually lost third place to championship contender Luo Kailuo.

Van der Drift crossed the finish line with a 2-second lead over Harker in the first race of the weekend. In the second race however, it was Luo Kailuo whoe would claim the win, followed by Florian Latorre and then van der Drift in third. A good points haul for the kiwi however, with three more meetings remaining in the season. Van der Drift sits third overall in the championship, Kailuo just 16 points ahead in second and Latorre leads the championship 35 points ahead of van der Drift.

Same tune plays for McLaughlin in Music City

It was de-ja-vu at the Music City, Nashville, Indycar Grand Prix today with Kiwi Scott Mclaughlin replicating his pole-setting performance of last year and his eventual second position in the race.

Contending with sweltering temperatures, McLaughlin, who was driving without a cool suit lead for 24 of the 80 lap race before pitting, but could only work his way up the field to second before a red flag stoppage lasting 11 minutes was called to clean up involving the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet of Felix Rosenqvist, the No. 55 AJ Foyt Racing/Sexton Properties Chevrolet of Benjamin Pedersen and the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet of Agustin Canapino in Turn 11.

This gave the Kiwi just 3 laps on cold tyres to make a pass on race leader Kyle Kirkwood. But McLaughlin and Alex Palou in third place had everything to play for and started a hot pursuit. McLaughlin sliced more than half of Kirkwood’s lead at the white flag, but he had to settle for his second consecutive runner-up finish from pole in this race.

“Right there at the end, man, they were so fast,” Kirkwood said. “They ran me down just in that last lap.”

Said McLaughlin: “I tried my hardest. Congrats to Kyle and his team. Another top-three, good points. Bummed we didn’t get the win, but we weren’t the best on the day. Kyle was. Hopefully next year we’re running for the championship and win here and win the championship, as well. There will be a huge party on Broadway.”

Meanwhile Scott Dixon would round out the top five and Rookie Marcus Armstrong finished in a respectable 13^th.

McElrea runs P2 in Nashville in Indycars NXT

Also running P2 at Nashville today was Kiwi up and comer, Hunter McElrea. True to his name, Hunter qualified fourth for the race, but was able to move up 2 positions to have a crack at Danish driver, Christian Rasmussen, for the lead.

Rasmussen would bolt away from Pole at the start after the first lap was under caution and cruised to a 4.7-second lead over McElrea during an otherwise clean first half of the race. But the first of three caution periods in the final 17 laps of the race was triggered on Lap 18 when Christian Bogle hit the wall in Turn 11 in the No. 7 HMD Motorsports with DCR car.

On the restart on Lap 20, Rasmussen again would make a clean getaway unchallenged but McElrea stayed on his gearbox briefly on Lap 27 restart before an oversteer moment let Rasmussen pull away.

Lots of mid field battles would create more caution periods but clearly Rasmussen had the pace to keep McElrea behind him today.

An Indycar NXT win has eluded McElrea this season, but he is consistently at the skinny end and now sits fourth in the championship, 46 points of Rassussen who has two race wins this season.