McLaughlin’s search for “special sauce” in IndyCar win drought
- Archie O’Reilly
- 2 hours ago
- 8 min read
If Scott McLaughlin was to grade his IndyCar season so far, he would award it a B-minus: solid and by no means catastrophic, but equally beneath his lofty standards.
“Look, I think it would be a high grade if I won or got a couple more podiums,” he insisted. “At the same time, it’s not a bad grade, I don’t think, because I think I only passed school with B-minuses. I was never an A-grade student. I’ll take the pass grade and move on.”
At the nine-race, halfway mark of the campaign, the seven-time race winner sits seventh in the standings. It is an improvement on his shock 10th-place championship result last year, albeit still subpar for a driver tipped for title contention after successive third-place seasons in 2023 and 2024, especially given the current 120-point margin to Álex Palou’s lead.
Maybe more troubling for McLaughlin - as much as he has come close to victory multiple times in the intervening period - is the fact he is winless since the Milwaukee Mile in September 2024. He is not yet alarmed by the drought, though a serial winner, it is rare territory for the three-time V8 Supercars champion.
“I’m a racer. I’m competitive. I want to win,” he rallied, speaking in a media call this week. “But it is what it is. We’ve had chances and we’ve had speed to do it. That’s all I can ask for. It just hasn’t quite gone our way. Sometimes it’s like this. I’ve had this before in my career where I’ve gone 18 months, two years without a win. It’s part and parcel of doing it.
“But I feel deep in my mind I’m executing as well as I can. I feel like I’m driving as good as I ever have. It’s just the competitiveness in the series right now is super high. When you have a chance to have a crack or have a win, you want to take that.
“That’s where we probably haven’t executed in the last year-and-a-half, in terms of taking the chance to win. Or maybe it hasn’t worked out in that regard. But we’ve been right there or thereabouts. If we can keep being consistent, keep putting ourselves in that position, I’m sure it’s going to open the gates.”
Since his three-win, seven-podium 2024 season, McLaughlin has recorded only five more rostrum results in 26 races. That campaign, he looked set to have been a more genuine challenger to Palou at the head of the standings had he not been disqualified from third place in the St. Petersburg season-opener after Team Penske’s push-to-pass infringement.
The consistency of peaks that defined that season - with eight top fives and 12 top 10s - have struggled to be replicated since. Four of McLaughlin’s nine top 10s last year came in the closing four rounds, while he already has four results outside of the top 10 in 2026.
A runner-up finish from pole in St. Pete in March marked a strong start to this intended rebound season, while a third-place result at the Indianapolis 500 was a high point after his pre-race crash last year. Sixth in Long Beach marked his best-ever result at that track, too.
Finishes of eighth and fifth on the short ovals of Phoenix Raceway and World Wide Technology Raceway were reasonable, though cast under the shadow of teammate Josef Newgarden winning both races. After all, with two oval wins in 2024, McLaughlin had emerged as one of the series’ best and most reliable in the discipline.
Even if to a lesser extent than in 2025, there have also still been errant weekends. That came to a head in Detroit, where damage sustained after multiple pieces of contact with former teammate Will Power - now of Andretti Global - meant McLaughlin finished 19th.
But still only 24 points from Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard, the New Zealander feels in a strong position performance-wise, even if inconsistency of results has still reigned.
“I feel like I’m driving really, really well,” McLaughlin assessed. “Things haven’t quite gone our way in some spots. [But] outside of the Detroit thing with Will, which I’d love to have back - that’s the one race where we probably let one go - I feel like we’ve really extended ourselves and taken results when we could have at most races.
“The Indy GP was a bit frustrating; we didn’t qualify well, got caught up in some stuff, damaged our car. We couldn’t really execute that well. I felt like St. Pete, we had a car that could have won, for sure. It’s just the way the [race] worked out.
“We’ve been in position or been there or thereabouts to execute. I feel like we have. It just hasn’t really gone our way or we haven’t had the outright pace, which we’re working on at the moment. Especially between myself and my new engineer Raul [Prados], who has been fantastic - I enjoy working with him - we’re trying to find that special sauce.
“[There are] countless days at the simulator, got a couple test days coming up, which is going to be big for me moving forward.”
Maybe an unstable return of results was always inevitable for McLaughlin to kick off 2026. There has essentially been wholesale change across the most meaningful roles within his No.3 team, headed by Raul Prados stepping into the lead engineering role after four years - from his sophomore season onwards - engineered by Ben Bretzman.
That prompted a particularly significant transition for McLaughlin, as Bretzman shifted to an all-encompassing role as Penske’s engineering manager for competition.
“It’s probably taken me a little longer to gel with my new engineering team, with Raul and stuff,” McLaughlin conceded. “There’s been plenty of good spots, as well, where we’ve made a lot of improvements in different areas. Since May, we’ve really started to gel well.
“I see a lot of light at the end of the tunnel for our relationship.”
Beyond Prados’ addition, David Faustino, Power’s former engineer and now technical director at Penske, has also become a fresh presence in McLaughlin’s squad. But most notably, Tim Cindric made a surprise return to Penske as the No.3 car strategist.
With Bretzman having stepped temporarily into the role for the back end of 2025, Cindric has filled a void left by Kyle Moyer, who lost his job as both strategist and the wider team’s general manager after the illegalities found on Penske cars in Indy 500 qualifying last year. Cindric, former long-time team president, had also been fired following that incident.
As much as Cindric - returning to Penske less than one year after that debacle - is extremely accomplished as a strategist, having served in the role for Josef Newgarden before his dismissal last May, McLaughlin has had to adapt to having a new voice in his ear.
“I’ve actually had to tune TC up on a couple of things: how loud he’s talking, what I want to hear at different points,” McLaughlin explained. “He’s really receptive to that. As a stand, I think we really started clicking. It sounded like it started clicking around Long Beach.
“The first couple of events we had, St. Pete and Phoenix, it was a little bit interesting in those points. A couple of teething problems. But there was nothing that we couldn’t manage. I felt like we had the right guy there, just managing it, along with Dave Faustino, who I hadn't worked directly with since I've been at Penske.
“Right now, it’s been really receptive from feedback and where we can improve. TC has been great; he’s a natural leader - led our team for so long. Really am enjoying it.”
Even further to those alterations, the all-change nature of McLaughlin’s off-season featured Colton Herta’s former spotter David Hunt replacing the outgoing Adam Fournier. All in all, volatility has been rife, contributing at least somewhat to an unfulfilled start to the year.
“It’s just a matter of getting used to different people on your radio or the way they speak or how they adapt in different situations,” McLaughlin added. “So it’s been fun. But I’d be lying if I said it [hasn’t] been taking longer than I thought it would have, for sure.
“I’m very lucky in my career I haven’t had much change besides moving from Supercars to IndyCar. This is probably the biggest change I’ve had since that period.”
The change within McLaughlin’s third of the Penske garage reflects the transformational state of the wider team, which was triggered by the sudden removals of Cindric, Moyer and managing director Ron Ruzewski last May.
It had already been a tough start to 2025 for Penske, only spiralling amid the post-May leadership limbo. It transpired to be the team’s worst campaign since 1999, owing to their best-placed driver, Power, finishing only ninth in the standings. There was a freakish amount of misfortune but performances were not always up to the usual Penske Perfect standards.
In 2026, there has been a team-wide reset, in many ways. Jonathan Diuguid has assumed the permanent presidential role, joined by Bretzman, Faustino and new vice president of competition Travis Law within a renewed leadership core. On a driving front, despite external doubt, youthful Power replacement David Malukas has impressed greatly.
In seventh, trailing Newgarden in sixth and Malukas in third, McLaughlin is currently the lowest-placed Penske driver in standings that look more rosy for the 17-time champion team. The pair of wins for Newgarden also serve as signs of revitalisation and restabilisation.
“We’re moving 100 percent in the right direction,” McLaughlin asserted. “I truly believe that. The way that I’ve seen the team work, the structured meetings, a little bit more going on now, the way the three drivers are working, the engineers, it’s as good as I’ve seen it and been a part of. From a programme perspective, I’m really excited.
“Jonathan is doing a fantastic job; Travis, Ben Bretzman and Dave, from a leadership perspective as well. I have full of confidence. There’s a lot of light at the end of the tunnel. Just excited for the new era of IndyCar to come in the next few years.”
In the immediate future, McLaughlin is intent on returning to Victory Lane after 27 races away, as well as simply restoring the regularity of the greater, non-winning peaks.
It would likely take a stunning comeback - and equally a dramatic collapse from Palou and his Chip Ganassi Racing squad - to contend for this year’s title. But even then, McLaughlin is not giving up hope, with more ovals on the horizon, including a doubleheader at Milwaukee, the venue of his last win, and two new street venues in Markham and Washington DC.
“The idea is to be as consistent as you can in this period. I feel like we’re well and truly still in the game if we can get a couple results here or there. All it takes is a couple events.
“I think 100 percent it’s still wide open for anyone. There’s so many opportunities for good and bad to happen for any car or anyone. You’d be silly if you were writing off the championship right now. There’s so [many] wildcards in this last half of the season. It’s probably going to be the battle of who doesn’t make the most mistakes.
“Álex is an amazing race driver, super fast, always there or thereabouts. [But] cracks do start to appear eventually. We’ll keep doing our thing and executing and hopefully get ourselves back in contention.”
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