'No option' but to make contact with Power, says McLaughlin

Will Power and Scott McLaughlin had the look of former teammates who could have stood on the podium in Detroit, but their inner angels weren’t the winners on Sunday as roughhousing on the streets of Motown induced their mutual downfall.

The coup de grace was a passing attempt by Power around the outside of McLaughlin exiting the Turn 3 hairpin, which resulted in contact that saw McLaughlin feed Power into the wall.

The hip check from the No. 3 Team Penske Chevy was enough to slam Power’s No. 26 Honda into the barrier and lift Power’s front tires off of the ground. It wasn’t long before the ex-Penske driver was climbing from his stricken car on pit lane, his race over on lap 79, and mouthing “**** off” to a hovering FOX camera while he processed the fury that was attempting to boil over.

“It was a disappointing race to say the least,” a calmer Power said. “We were in a good position there near the end and had a shot at a podium. Unfortunately, the contact caused suspension damage and that was it. It’s frustrating, but I have no doubt that our time on the top step of the podium is coming soon.”

McLaughlin would join Power on pit lane a bit later on lap 96 of the 100-lapper as damage to his car was too great to complete the race.

“I had a broken toe-link after the contact,” McLaughlin said. “We were side-by-side out of Turn 3 and I got a little sideways, which made me press him to the wall a lot more aggressively than I wanted, which closed the hole. I don’t know whether he’s pissed off because of that [or not]. He got me and I was pretty happy with that. Going into Turn 3, he locked the right front. I got up the inside of him. Honestly, I was going to go to the outside, and he kept turning in and basically gave me no option. The whole way, no option. I went beside him, no option. Turned into the side of me and drove me into the right-side fence and another fence.

"I didn’t want to do that to him. I didn’t want to do that to my day. We’ll talk about it. I have so much respect for Will Power. He’s been my teammate for so many years and helped me so much. I regard him as a guy with a lot of respect. Today, I felt like he gave me no option, and I really didn’t want to see that happen with either of us. I’m super frustrated. We had a great car, and I don’t know what else I could have done.”