Bizarre 'Georgina' moment briefly halts IndyCar race, Penske gets redemption

The Barber Motorsports Park witnessed a great redemption on Sunday as Scott McLaughlin led his team to clinch the top two positions. After some trouble last week when two of Penske's cars got disqualified from the season's first race, IndyCar was in chaos. But then, Penske's team bounced back strongly at Barber Motorsports Park, grabbing the top two spots in the race.

However, the IndyCar drivers were shocked due to a bizarre incident during the race. At Barber Motorsports Park, there's this mannequin called Georgina. She usually hangs from a bridge there, but during Lap 52 of the race, she fell onto the edge of the track.

This caused a caution and briefly halted the race. Notably, the people announcing at the track quickly let everyone know that Georgina wasn't a real person, just a quirky part of the stuff you see at Barber Motorsports Park.

Penske’s strategy pays off!

Speaking about the race, McLaughlin and Penske's fuel strategy paid off perfectly, with teammate Will Power securing second place, mirroring their starting positions. For McLaughlin, clinching his fifth IndyCar win brought some relief amid a tough week for Team Penske.

Earlier, there was controversy as Newgarden lost his season-opening win at St. Petersburg, Florida, due to manipulation of the push-to-pass system. McLaughlin faced disqualification despite finishing third. Although Power received penalties, he wasn't disqualified. Nonetheless, they rallied, leading Team Penske to its eighth victory in 14 races at the permanent road course.

After winning the race McLaughlin said, “We just had to keep rolling. We know our job. We know what we need to do. I’m just super proud of our execution.” “He got a run on me and you don’t want two Penske cars out of the race with everything that was going on,” Power said after the race. “So I was kind of easy on him going into Turn 1 there. We were certainly fast but a lot of strategy played into that”, he further added.