McLaughlin gelling with “fantastic” engineering group ahead of IndyCar run-in

Credit: Travis Hinkle

Scott McLaughlin feels he is beginning to hit his stride in 2026 after something of an engineering overhaul on his No.3 Team Penske stand ahead of his sixth season in IndyCar.

After four years working with Ben Bretzman, a promotion for McLaughlin’s long-time race engineer prompted the addition of Raul Prados, who switched over from Penske’s IMSA Sports Car Championship programme, as McLaughlin’s lead engineer. 

Former team president Tim Cindric also returned to the organisation as a fresh strategist for McLaughlin, filling the role left vacant by the dismissed Kyle Moyer.

But despite this being a collection of esteemed individuals, it has taken time for McLaughlin to gel with a revamped core around him. He still has only two podiums to his name this season and is enduring a winless run dating back to 2024 and now spanning 30 races.

“My stand is fantastic. My engineering group is fantastic,” McLaughlin said. “I was so confident with them heading into the year. It’s just one of those things that you’ve got to gel regardless. [When] you have all these different tracks, it’s so tough in IndyCar to be great week in, week out.

“For Raul, he’s been in sportscars for a long time, hadn’t been in IndyCar a long time full-time, although he’s done the odd Indy 500 here and there. Going to Barber, going to a street track, going to a short oval, trying to keep that cadence right and getting the balance right, nailing that in a series that’s so tight as IndyCar, it’s difficult.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

From his sophomore season in 2022 through to the end of a rockier 2025 campaign, McLaughlin forged an exceptional chemistry with Bretzman. In their first three years together, he finished fourth and twice third in the championship, recording all of his seven race wins in IndyCar after his move stateside as a three-time V8 Supercars champion.

But a change on his stand this year prompted something of a reset in the driver-engineer relationship on the No.3 stand, as McLaughlin has naturally had to learn to alter and tailor his feedback to suit Prados.

“It just took a little bit more time for me maybe to get my terminology about what I wanted with the car and to make it better to him,” McLaughlin said of his challenging start to this season. “The way he was taking some of my comments maybe was like he thought I wanted too much and he was changing the car a lot, then I didn’t want it that much.

“[We were] just trying to manufacture that language that we can both get on top of a few things. I thought the testing we’ve done was really great; Milwaukee and Mid-Ohio, we had some really good tests. The races since Indy, I feel like we’ve all clicked really well. I’m excited to keep building with this group. Have so much confidence and we’ll keep working.”

Since finishing a career-best third place in May’s Indianapolis 500, McLaughlin’s results have somewhat reflected the growing chemistry within his group. Three top-seven finishes, including two top-five results on ovals, in the last four rounds mark his most consistent run of the season to date.

Credit: Bella Rosen

This weekend at Portland International Raceway, where he won in 2022, McLaughlin faces the task of rectifying a suboptimal season on road courses, where aside from finishing seventh at Road America he has picked up a trio of 16th-place finishes this year.

Portland marks the first of six races in a five-week stretch - an even split of two apiece between road courses, street tracks and ovals - that McLaughlin is relishing in his bid to return to Victory Lane for the first time since at the Milwaukee Mile on 1st September 2024.

“Positive momentum, it’s a real thing in sport, especially in motorsport,” he said. “We’re looking at, from the No.3 car side, really trying to concentrate on these five weeks as a little mini five-week championship, in some ways, and try to do the best we can. The last few races we’ve come on strong as a team, between engineering, driving, on the stand. 

“The biggest thing is trying to learn as much as you can with your team, prove that we can do this together and work hard. Any momentum’s great. Certainly the confidence from a really good end to the year, you’ll carry through the whole off-season with all your simulator work, testing, whatever. Hopefully that bodes well for the start of ’27.”