Three-time Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin on the ‘biggest race of his life’ ahead of the start of his new IndyCar racing career
After dominating Supercars for the last three years, Scott McLaughlin heads to Birmingham, Alabama this weekend to begin a new chapter in his motor racing career.
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Scott McLaughlin had an obsession with the Bathurst 1000 before he won it.
The triple Supercars champion would spend hours devouring old videos of the famous race, pouring over clips of the winners and analysing qualifying laps of Mount Panorama.
Then McLaughlin won the endurance classic in 2019 and his studious preoccupation with the Great Race eased off.
Now, the IndyCar convert has a new obsession.
There is another blockbuster race circled on his calendar this year – the world famous Indy 500 on May 30 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“Apart from Bathurst, I’ve never been so excited about a race in my whole entire career,” said McLaughlin as he prepares to launch into life as a full-time IndyCar racer.
“Before I won Bathurst, I watched races all the time, I would look at YouTube clips of people winning it, of qualifying laps, I was obsessed with it.
“And then I won it and I stopped doing it, I wasn’t as obsessed. And now, unfortunately for (wife) Karly, I am doing the same with the Indy 500.
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“Before I go to bed, I watch on-board (vision), I watch videos. I have really circled that race.
“The month of May is a good time that I would like to feel a bit more acquainted with the car …. I feel like that’s a realistic goal for me to be ready for the biggest race of my life.
“The opportunity to do something which I’ve watched since I was a little kid is amazing. To be honest I never thought I would race it.
“I didn’t think this opportunity would happen and now to go there and be in a Team Penske car at the Indianapolis 500, which is now owned by Roger (Penske) is pretty special.”
Shifting gears after dominating to win the last three consecutive Supercars championships, McLaughlin will suit up for the first race of his new career in the United States in the 2021 IndyCar series opener at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, next weekend.
Departing Supercars as a record-breaker, the 27-year-old joins the powerful Team Penske squad alongside Australian Indy 500 winner Will Power and former series champions Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden.
He has already made his race debut in an IndyCar, lining up in the 2020 series finale at St Petersburg – a week after Bathurst – and was sitting 17th before he crashed out mid-race.
ROOKIE EXPECTATIONS
New teammate Power has already predicted McLaughlin has the talent to become a championship challenger in IndyCar.
Despite poles and podiums being the norm for him in Supercars, McLaughlin is keeping his own expectations for his rookie IndyCar season in check.
“I don’t really have a huge amount of expectations, it’s hard to set goals because you just don’t know where you’re at,” McLaughlin told News Corp from his base in North Carolina.
“For me this year is just (about) getting experience because I’m going to places I’ve never been to, tracks I’ve never been to, I’m running my first Indy 500, first time racing on an oval.
“The more laps I do in places, the better shape I am going to be in the next few years.
“A goal for me would be to basically finish every race this year and I would love to be somewhere at the front obviously, I am very competitive. But at the end of the day I’ve got to learn and if I finish every race and get in every lap I can it’s going to help me 10-fold.”
McLaughlin conceded it would take time to adjust to potentially more midfield racing as he learns his new race craft rather than so often leading from the front as he did in Supercars.
“I’m not worried about being down the back or being down the midfield, I’m very competitive with myself and if I know I’m doing a good job the best I can then I’m satisfied,” he said. “But if I’m not and I’m underperforming myself, that’s when I’ll start getting frustrated.”
OPEN WHEEL COMBAT
There’ll be no more rubbing panels for McLaughlin in IndyCar.
The New Zealand-born racer knows he has to get used to a whole new open-wheel battle ground unlike the bump and grind of Supercars.
“Learning wheel-to-wheel combat in an open-wheeler I am very new to and it’s going to be very different to what I’m used to,” McLaughlin said.
“Traditionally you can’t really bang wheels, if you bang wheels you are in trouble whereas in Supercars it’s all about banging doors and you can get away with a bit of contact.
“I’m going to have to learn about that a fair bit.”
McLaughlin described the differences between a Supercar and the Dallara/Chevrolet he will drive in his rookie IndyCar season as “basically everything”.
“Basically the IndyCar is like an aeroplane upside down,” McLaughlin said.
“The wings that are trying to keep it on the ground … we have a tremendous amount of downforce that we generate.
“It’s got no power steering so the forces that you get through the wheel are very real. You’ve got to really muscle the car whereas a Supercar you can have power steering so to be precise in a Supercar is a lot easier than being precise in an IndyCar.
“When you need to pull out that lap it is very hard because you can’t make a mistake and still be two or three tenths off. If you make a mistake in IndyCar you lose a lot of time purely because it’s very hard to come back from with the no power steering and making the line, it stuffs up your flow a lot.”
SCOTT STRENGTH
McLaughlin has spent the longest off-season of his career preparing himself physically for the different demands of driving an open-wheel car.
While his previous training focused more on cardio training to help withstand the heat inside a Supercar, he has had to place a greater emphasis now on strength.
“I’ve always trained a lot, but this year I’m genuinely the strongest and fittest I’ve ever been,” McLaughlin said.
“I’ve done a lot of upper-body (work), a lot of weights to get ready a lot more than I ever have purely because I need to train in different areas.
“In Supercars it was all about heat, it was all about combating what it was going to be like at (Adelaide) and what it was going to be like at Bathurst for long periods of time.
“Whereas here you are in the car for a long time (and it’s) a little bit hot with the windscreen, but you need more muscular endurance than anything. So I’ve been really working hard on that.”
McLaughlin said his race weight was similar to what it was in Supercars, but had put on “a lot of muscle” and was now “very lean”.
“I’m doing (training) nearly every day which is something that I never really did in Australia. I did maybe three or four days a week but not every day,” McLaughlin said.
US FUTURE
McLaughlin hopes he can see out his days as a racer in the United States, but would not rule out a return to Australia to race if his IndyCar career didn’t take off.
“Getting through this year is a big thing for me and at the end of the year I will have an idea of where I’m at,” he said.
“I’d rather be here a long time than a short time and if that meant me finishing my career here in the States then I would prefer that.
“If things didn’t work out then for sure, Karly loves Australia and things could change, you don’t count it out. I love the sport of Supercars, and there is plenty of races all over the world that I want to do still.
“But we know our goals and I know what the team wants from me.”
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