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He’s only driven four seasons in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and in an open-wheel car, but Scott McLaughlin was the top-performing driver for mighty Team Penske for the second straight season.
McLaughlin’s fifth-place finish in the Sept. 15 season finale at Nashville Superspeedway catapulted him to a second consecutive third-place points finish. It’s another chapter in the remarkable rise of New Zealand native McLaughlin, who first raced full time in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES in 2021 after winning three championships in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship featuring full-bodied touring cars.
“I just feel like every race I know that I can be fast at now,” he said. “I’m disappointed if I’m not fast, and that’s where it’s at now. But that’s how it’s expected as a Penske driver.
“I feel like I have enough experience now that at most tracks that I can just basically hit the ground running. Whether it’s a new track, I feel like I’m really ready to go. I’m not really worried about it.”
Josef Newgarden leads Team Penske with six victories – including two in the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge – in the last two seasons. But McLaughlin is right behind with four. Penske teammate Will Power has three wins.
McLaughlin leads most of the other categories. He has 26 top-10 finishes compared to 22 with Power and 19 to Newgarden, 754 laps led compared to 739 to Newgarden and 547 to Power and seven NTT P1 Awards compared to two each by Newgarden and Power.
One of McLaughlin’s poles was last May for the 108th Running of the Indianapolis 500, his second top position on a circle track. McLaughlin then earned his first oval victory July 13 at Iowa Speedway with a second oval win coming Sept. 1 at Milwaukee Mile.
But there is one separator between McLaughlin and his Penske teammates – championships. Newgarden and Power each has won the Astor Challenge Cup twice. McLaughlin seeks his first, saying his No. 3 Penske team feels like the Buffalo Bills of the NFL – a well-liked franchise ready to break through for its first title after losing four straight Super Bowls in the 1990s.
“We’re close, but we’re just not there,” he said. “We’re very good and have a mad dog fan base like them, too.”
The blueprint for reaching that goal is the same for McLaughlin as the last three offseasons. He identifies a particular area of weakness to improve.
That strategy has worked. McLaughlin climbed from 14th in points in 2021 to fourth in 2022 to third in 2023. While he was third again in 2024, the oval focus paid off with his first two circle-track victories.
“I knew I could do it,” he said. “It’s the matter of putting it together. I’m lucky that I’ve got the car that I can just to put it together, but I feel like me and Ben (Bretzman, his race engineer) have really worked out making things simple and working on what works for me and just keeping a very consistent race package and feeling of the car.
“I feel like as soon as I get into the race car, I just hammer it, and I’m right where I want to be. I feel very comfortable. I almost feel as comfortable, if not more comfortable on an oval right now, and that’s a really good thing because it’s the backbone of our sport.”
The area of focus this offseason will be searching for consistency and eliminating mistakes, what McLaughlin hopes will be the final puzzle piece to a championship.
“You can have these years where you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, I was so close,’ and you got to go find something, and then you come back and you overdrive it,” he said. “I had a very similar year, the year before I won my first championship in Supercars. I was so close, but then I came back the next year, and the first half of the year was a blow up. I ended up winning the championship that year but because I settled myself down and I thought about it. I’ve got to make sure that I do that next year.
“I know I can do it. There’s not a doubt in my mind that I can win the ‘500’ and the championship, as well. I just got to tidy a few things up, and we’ll be OK.”
He also will have one other very important focus during this offseason – his first child. McLaughlin and his wife, Karly, welcomed baby daughter Lucy on Oct. 10.
