WWTR Offers Scott McLaughlin Chance To Wipe Away May Memories
INDYCAR
The NTT INDYCAR SERIES heads to World Wide Technology Raceway this weekend for its second oval race of the season. Scott McLaughlin will look to complete his first such lap of the year.
The Team Penske driver with two career oval wins suffered through a miserable Month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. A week before the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge, McLaughlin hit the Turn 2 wall, sending his car airborne. The team opted to use a backup car in the race, and he crashed that during a warmup lap.
McLaughlin still carries the pain of that errant moment on the front straightaway, and he might always do so given how deep such heartbreak goes in this sport.
'It was one of, if not the lowest points of my career, but it's something I'll learn from,' he said this week. 'I still am a little bit perplexed about what happened in that scenario and how it did. Never sort of done that before in my career.
'Yeah, it was tough. But champions are made from learning from their mistakes. I truly believe we had a really fast car. I feel really strong on ovals. There's nothing to be upset about apart from the fact I felt I sort of wasted a really good opportunity.'
McLaughlin added there's nothing left to do but live and learn.
'The sun always rises,' he said. 'You just have got to get on with it.'
This weekend's Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline comes at a good time for McLaughlin and his Team Penske teammates. McLaughlin, Will Power and Josef Newgarden are still in search of their first race wins of the season, and this 1.25-mile oval has historically been one of their best.
McLaughlin has won the NTT P1 Award for the past two NTT INDYCAR SERIES races at World Wide Technology Raceway, and Power won the two poles prior to that. Newgarden has won four of the past five races at the track and five overall, including last year's, when he held off McLaughlin at the finish. Power won in 2018.
McLaughlin hasn't won a race at World Wide Technology Raceway, but he has consistently been in position to do so. In this order, he has finished fourth, third, fifth and second, and he has combined to lead 79 laps, including 67 in last year's race.
'Really excited to get back there,' the driver of the No. 3 DEX Imaging Team Penske Chevrolet said. 'Obviously, it's a track that I've love and I've always gone pretty well at. I go into a place there with a lot of confidence. The way that the season's going for me right now, I need a bit of a rebound here, (to) just get going. The last two events have been pretty tough.
'But all good. We'll just go in there with a lot of confidence and see where it ends up.'
The first practice will be held at 11:30 a.m. ET Saturday (FS1, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network). Qualifying follows at 3 p.m. ET on the same broadcast outlets, and there will be a final practice at 6:30 p.m. ET. The race is at 8 p.m. Sunday ET on FOX, the FOX Sports app and the INDYCAR Radio Network.
Sunday's race will begin a sprint to the Astor Challenge Cup. Ten races remain to crown the series champion, and they will be held on the next 12 weekends. Five of them will be on ovals, which suits McLaughlin just fine.
The native of Christchurch, New Zealand, never drove on an oval until the 2021 season, and he immediately took to one of them. He finished second at Texas Motor Speedway in his maiden oval race. He followed that with an eighth-place finish in that weekend's second Texas race and later added a fourth-place finish at World Wide Technology Raceway.
McLaughlin has finished in the top six of 15 of his 22 oval races. Now consider that he has made five starts in the '500' and only finished one of them (sixth in 2024). That means his performances at the non-Indy tracks has been astounding: an average finish of 4.8 with a pair of wins, four seconds, three thirds, a fourth and three fifths.
McLaughlin said he came into his own on ovals with last year's two wins. With each oval now he feels confident, 'like it's my kettle of fish,' he said. And obviously, he particularly likes World Wide Technology Raceway.
'It's probably the closest (oval) to replicating a road course in some ways,' he said. 'Just fast, sweeping corners in Turns 3 and 4. (Turns 1 and 2 are) tight and twisty. You go down a couple of gears using the brakes a little.
'It's very unusual to use a brake pedal on an oval in INDYCAR -- we do that every lap. I just really enjoy that. I enjoy that style of racing.'
Contributing to McLaughlin's current optimism is that he has put the Indy disaster behind him even as he still isn't sure what led to the car getting away from him and slamming the inside wall.
'I've had plenty of low moments in my career, and I've felt like I've come back pretty strong,' he said. 'As long as I try and turn this negative into a positive, that's the main thing. I can't just dwell on that moment.'
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