In the closing laps of an already exciting race, it looked as though Lando Norris was going to make claim victory and make it two wins from two races, having seen off his McLaren SPM teammates Oliver Askew and Pato O’Ward in a battle for the lead. Marcus Ericsson was in the mix too and looking quick, but unlikely to find a clear way into second quickly enough to be able to catch Lando.
Then, coming up to start the penultimate lap, Norris came up to lap reigning winner of the actual Indy 500, Simon Pagenaud, who had been leading until he dropped back during an incident. As Norris caught up, Pagenaud was slowing down in order to come into the pits, there was a ‘misjudgement*‘, and the two collided.
*Apparently, Pagenaud deliberately tried to slow Lando down and lose him the race.
Pagenaud you tit 😂 #INDYCARChallenge pic.twitter.com/386nlzupku
— XR Norris (@xr_norris) May 2, 2020
Then, the last lap happened. O’Ward and Askew started fighting, allowing Ericsson to pass the pair of them and take the lead with two corners to go.
And that’s when things got really crazy.
The leaders get wrecked twice on the final lap, and @Smclaughlin93 WINS at @IMS in the @iRacing @IndyCar Challenge! #OneHomeTeam pic.twitter.com/4Nmkx8pBhU
— IndyCar on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) May 2, 2020
Yup, that happened. Ericsson was taken out by O’Ward, leaving Askew and Santino Ferrucci in a drag race to the line for the win. For some reason, Ferrucci (who was banned from Formula 2 a couple of years ago for deliberately crashing into his teammate, among other things) decided that the thing to do would be to swipe into the side of Askew and wipe the pair of them out within sight of the line instead of just racing to the finish fairly.
That meant that pole-sitter Scott McLaughlin came through the carnage to take the win ahead of Conor Daly in what is surely the most insane finish to any of the sim racing we’ve seen over the last couple of months.
And breathe.
It’s kind of a shame some of the drivers decided it’d be a good idea to start crashing into others on purpose as overall, this has been one of the most professionally run and organised sim racing series in recent weeks and this sort of thing only sours the experience. Just because some of them don’t take it too seriously, it doesn’t mean that others don’t – whether that’s the drivers or the fans watching.
