Scott McLaughlin He has identified the areas in which he needs to improve to defeat “The Professor” alex palou For the IndyCar title – and now he’s more confident he can do it.
Pallo has dominated the American championship in recent years, winning three of the last four titles, while McLaughlin is looking for his first title since moving away from Australian Supercars.
The 31-year-old’s best championship finish has come in the last two seasons, finishing third in each, but consistency has been the issue. For example, in 2024, he won the same three races as Palu, but had five fewer top-five finishes, leaving McLaughlin 39 points clear of the champion.
“I think ultimately we were just as fast, if not faster,” the Kiwi said. “It was about putting together the year he had.
“As we know, he is like a professor who has half the things. He’s very good and very consistent and I have a lot of respect for the guy.
“But we are not thinking too much about it. I think there are a lot of other drivers who are very good. I think (2024 runner-up) colton herta It’s been an amazing year.
“It’s just a matter of focusing on ourselves and what we can improve on. “That’s all we can control and hopefully what we have done is enough.”
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Chevrolet, NNT P1 Award, Pole
Photo by: Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images
McLaughlin’s 2024 title challenge was hampered by four very poor results: Long Beach, Detroit, Laguna Seca and Toronto.
At Long Beach, gearbox problems forced him to retire, he crashed from second place at Detroit during a collision with his Penske teammate. Will-Power There were also low scores at Laguna Seca and Toronto – and McLaughlin feels they can’t afford to run those types of races if they want to be crowned champions.
“We all know the right path is consistent results with some wins along the way,” said McLaughlin, who also lost his podium in the St. Petersburg season-opener for using the push-to-pass incorrectly on a restart. Was. “I think you definitely need to win a few times but consistency is important and we all know that.
“You have to overcome those big bad results and we had some of those last year, which were really sad. “We can all learn from this and become better.”
However, McLaughlin is still feeling excited for 2025, especially after scoring his first wins around oval tracks in Iowa and Milwaukee last year.
“From where I started at the end of 2020 to now, I am a completely different race driver,” he said.
“I thought I had the potential to win last year and I still think I had it. I hadn’t won the Oval yet, we were close, but now having won the Oval – obviously it gives me a lot of confidence.
“But I would be lying to say I feel any different from last year. I definitely feel like I’m in the same boat, it’s just a matter of circumstances and putting myself in different positions. Sometimes you’ve just got to have a little lady luck.”
in this article
Ed Hardy
indycar
Scott McLaughlin
Team Penske
Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics
Subscribe to news alerts