Hunter McElrea drove a consistent race to come home in fifth position during the weekend’s Indy Lights round in St. Louis, Illinois while Australian-American driver Matthew Brabham took home the win.
Indy Lights drivers took to the oval circuit of the World Wide Technology Raceway for the eleventh round in the series with Brabham clinching the victory from points leader Linus Lundqvist by just .6770 of a second.
After starting the race in fifth, New Zealand driver McElrea soon came under competition by lap three from the likes of Daniel Frost and Jacob Abel.
After winding up in seventh for much of the race, the Kiwi was soon looking up the inside of Abel for sixth all while Lundqvist led up front.
On lap 52, third-place runner Christian Rasmussen made heavy contact with the wall coming out of turn two when his car’s rear-end broke loose.
The incident which saw Rasmussen pit shuffled the field forward, moving McElrea up to sixth.
Just two laps later, McElrea then made a move around the outside of Abel, earning himself fifth in the process which is the position he finished in.
After leading 71 laps out of the 75 lap race, Lundqvist came under pressure from Brabham who had used his preferred high line on turns one and two to gain momentum on the Swede.
Brabham passed Lundqvist for the win with Benjamin Pedersen rounding out the top three spots.
Lundqvist leads second-place Brabham in the points standings by 108 points with just three races remaining. He needs to lead by 109 after the next event on September 4 at Portland International Raceway to clinch the title.
McElrea is now third in the standings just one point behind Brabham.
