IndyCar: Where have we seen this before?

By Asher Fair | Apr 13, 2020

(Editors note: This image was computer generated in-game) Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske, iRacing, IndyCar (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images) /

Even in the virtual world, it is still a Team Penske 1-2-3 atop the IndyCar championship standings, although those standings are technically unofficial.

If you were to look at the teams (well, team) represented in the top three in the unofficial championship standings for the IndyCar iRacing Challenge, the virtual series introduced by IndyCar and iRacing in response to the real-life postponements and cancellations caused by the coronavirus pandemic, you might think real racing has taken place over the last three weeks.

Who do many fans expect to sit atop of the championship standings after any given race in IndyCar? It’s an easy choise: Team Penske.

The thing about Team Penske is they not only hire top-tier drivers, but they have top-tier equipment for those drivers to drive. It is no surprise that they have won four of the last six IndyCar championships and three of the last Indianapolis 500 races, including the last two.

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But in iRacing, the equipment field is level. Nobody is at an advantage from a car standpoint, because the virtual cars are really nothing more than software, even though the drivers are still doing what they’d be doing in the cockpit to drive them.

Yet here we are after the first three races of the IndyCar iRacing Challenge, and it’s a 1-2-3 sweep atop the championship standings for Roger Penske’s organization after two consecutive 1-2 finishes, including a 1-2-4 finish this past Saturday afternoon.

Scott McLaughlin, the two-time Supercars champion who drives for DJR Team Penske, has never even competed in an IndyCar race before. Yet it is he who leads the unofficial championship standings through three races with 123 points and an average finish of 2.33.

He placed fourth at virtual Watkins Glen International before winning at virtual Barber Motorsports Park and then overcoming a first-lap crash at virtual Michigan International Speedway to place second.

It’s really a 1-2-2 Team Penske sweep, as Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, the last two Indy 500 winners, are tied for 2nd place in the championship standings with 109 points, 14 points behind McLaughlin.

Power has not yet won a race, but he has placed everywhere else in the top four. He placed third at virtual Watkins Glen International, second at virtual Barber Motorsports Park and fourth at virtual Michigan International Speedway.

Then there is Pagenaud, who placed sixth at virtual Watkins Glen International, fifth at virtual Barber Motorsports Park and then won at virtual Michigan International Speedway, in large part thanks to a brilliant pit stop strategy.

Collectively, the average finish of these three drivers is 3.11, which is just 1.11 below the best possible statistic in this category.

Team Penske’s other driver, Josef Newgarden, sits in eighth place in the championship standings with 54 points and finishes of seventh, ninth and 24th at virtual Watkins Glen International, virtual Barber Motorsports Park and virtual Michigan International Speedway, respectively.

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While the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series championship standings look absolutely nothing like the real world standings, with MBM Motorsports’ Timmy Hill ahead of JTG Daugherty Racing’s Ryan Preece and Rick Ware Racing’s Garrett Smithley, the IndyCar iRacing Challenge shows that when it comes to Team Penske, they may have great equipment, but they hire even better drivers.

There are three races remaining on the IndyCar iRacing Challenge schedule, and they are scheduled to take place at a “Random Draw” virtual track on Saturday, April 18, virtual Circuit of the Americas on Saturday, April 25 and a non-IndyCar “Dream” virtual track on Saturday, May 2. But this schedule could be extended depending on the status of the pandemic in the real world.