Scott McLaughlin has accomplished a lot in just a relatively short amount of time in motorsports, stacking up a CV full of wins from around the globe in addition to capturing three Supercars titles in Australia.
And it started at an early age for the Kiwi, setting the mark as the youngest winner in the history of Supercars after taking the checkered flag at Pukekohe in 2013 at 19 years, 10 months and 3 days old.
He went on to claim 55 more wins in the series, including the 2019 edition of the Bathurst 1000.
After McLaughlin’s IndyCar Series one-off start on the Streets of St. Petersburg in 2020, he made the full-time switch with Team Penske the following season.
In 2022, he delivered a rousing win at the very track he made his debut, fending off then-reigning (and now two-time) series champion Alex Palou.
Currently contesting his fourth season in North America’s premier open-wheel championship, McLaughlin has amassed six wins. His latest victory in the opening race of a double-header weekend at Iowa stood as his maiden on an oval and saw him claim he could “call myself an IndyCar driver now” to pair with his success on road and street circuits.
With that, it begs the question: Which series win is more satisfying than the other for McLaughlin?
“It’s hard to answer that question without pissing people off on both sides of the world,” quipped McLaughlin, who also captured an LMP2 class victory in IMSA’s 12 Hours of Sebring last year.
“I think from an IndyCar perspective, winning a race in IndyCar, there are so many variables that go into an IndyCar race. Like, winning an IndyCar race is extremely satisfying.
“A V8 (Supercars) race, they differ. I mean, if you have a sprint V8 race, where you just have to get off the line and drive it home, that’s a lot easier than a three-stop race in Toronto or something like that.
“But then you have Bathurst and that’s a six- or seven-hour race, and another driver and there’s a lot of variables that are out of your control; it’s extremely satisfying when you win that race.
“So, I think it differs. And it’s the same here, I mean, I’m sure that the Thermal race that Alex (Palou) won maybe wasn’t as satisfying as his race win at, wherever it was, I can’t remember because he’s won at a lot of places.
“I think it just depends on how difficult the win is, I think, and that determines the satisfaction.”
With that said, though, McLaughlin shed light on what he views as the most satisfying win of his career to date.
“It’s hard to go past Bathurst,” McLaughlin said, the 2021 IndyCar Rookie of the Year.
“For me, that really set up my career here. You know, I got out of the car and the first thing that Roger (Penske) said to me was, ‘Alright, time for America.’
“Yeah, that set me up, right. Then, probably, a very close second is my first win at St. Petersburg.
“That was a good one. I had light traffic and Alex, the reigning champion, breathing down my neck, that was a bit of my arrival sort of moment, especially after the year I had previously.”
