How McLaughlin reclaimed his ‘happy spot’ at Barber

Scott McLaughlin was a mass of dark emotions one year ago.

Like his Team Penske teammate Josef Newgarden, McLaughlin was guilty of taking a bite of IndyCar’s forbidden apple — using extra horsepower from his car’s push-to-pass system when it wasn’t meant to be activated — and was duly stripped of his second-place points from the St. Petersburg race that opened the 2024 season.

Penske’s illegal act came to light during morning warmup at Long Beach, and after a quick post-race investigation, IndyCar found Newgarden used the added power three times on the way to winning St. Pete and McLaughlin used it once during his runner-up performance. Both were disqualified, fines were levied, and team members were eventually suspended.

McLaughlin’s character, along with his success earned in IndyCar, was called into question. He was angry, embarrassed and under attack. And guilty, which he did not dispute when IndyCar revealed he used 1.9 seconds of the 50hp boost.

With Barber Motorsports Park following days after Long Beach, the Penske push-to-pass scandal owned the news cycle 52 weeks ago, and while Newgarden chose to remain silent before holding a press conference to address the situation on the Friday of the Barber event, McLaughlin went straight to social media, shared his thoughts shortly after IndyCar’s rulings were made public, and arrived with renewed motivation to silence his critics.

The New Zealander let his driving do the talking with a pole position and crushing performance in the Children’s Grand Prix of Alabama where he led 58 of 90 laps with the No. 3 Chevy. The victory didn’t erase what took place at St. Pete, but it was a reset of sorts — and introduced some positivity during the roughest week of his career, which he used as a springboard to rally and become Penske’s top driver in the championship after placing third in the standings.

“It’s not happy memories at all,” McLaughlin said, rewinding his life by 365 days. “And I guess the whole thing that so many people I spoke to during that week, from ex-race drivers, current race drivers, to friends, family, it was all about you just have to tell your truth, tell your story; there’s nothing else you can do. And ultimately, what I put on the table was exactly what happened and still to this day, I regret the laziness and how unfocused I was to even push it at that point. First race of the season, and pushing it like I did, making a mistake that I shouldn’t have made, right? And that certainly hurts.

“But I felt I was pretty upfront about it. There’s nothing more I could have added; very transparent throughout the whole process, and that was not only with the media and the fans, but also with Roger and his internal investigation, which included so many little interviews and whatnot. But that’s how serious they thought of it and took it. So the best thing for me when I got to Barber was just to turn social media off — which I still do today for race weekends. And ultimately, that was my happy spot in a race car. My happy spot was what I did at Barber.”

In the year since Barber, McLaughlin’s become a first-time father, and on Tuesday, he proudly posed for photos after becoming an American citizen like his wife and daughter. From great depths to the heartwarming heights he’s experiencing today, no IndyCar driver has gone through a bigger full-circle passage than McLaughlin.

So honoured to be able to join my daughter and wife as an American Citizen. Consider myself very lucky to now have dual citizenship in 2 amazing countries Read More