Scott McLaughlin is a three-time champion of the Australian Supercar series and the 2024 Indianapolis 500 polesitter. Since coming from the tin tops to the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, he’s visited Victory Lane seven times, which is super impressive having spent the majority of his racing career learning how to race a completely different car. In this interview in the media bullpen at the 2025 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, McLaughnlin dishes on the contact controversy at the Thermal Grand Prix, talks about how special it is to race at the 50^th Anniversary of the AGPLB, and gives us some keen insight into his Indy 500 prep including a big assist he’s receiving from former “500” and series champ, Simon Pageanaud.  Enjoy!

NOTE: At Long Beach, McLaughlin qualified and finished sixth. At Indianapolis, Team Penske’s year came crashing down. McLaughlin crashed in practice before Top-12 qualifying. However, it was noticed in the technical inspection line that his teammate, Josef Newgarden, had an attenuator that had been modified which is in breach of the rules. His other teammate, Will Power, also had that modification, although McLaughlin’s didn’t. Even though he qualified 10^th, his Indy 500 would end on the pace lap before the start of the race when he lost control of his car warming up his tires and crashed into the pit wall. He was devastated with that mistake and it kind of summed up Penske’s debacle there. Penske had fired team president Tim Cindric, managing director, Ron Ruzewski and general manager, Kyle Moyer just days before the race…

By Larry Mason

Copyright © 2025 Larry Mason

Interview and photos Copyright © by Larry Mason (unless otherwise noted)

Scott McLaughlin is happy to be in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES as a winning driver for Team Penske. Here he is just prior to the start of the 2025 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach shaking hands with the Firestone Firehawk.

Pushing hard through the 90-degree, right-hand, Turn 9, McLaughlin would qualify sixth for the 50^th Anniversary of the AGPLB.

With his hand over the top of the wheel, McLaughlin makes his way through the long, left-hand Turn 10 on his way to the hairpin.

Turn 10 is sort of a double apex corner as you enter somewhat tight, swing wide with momentum and then get back driver’s-left before entering the hairpin. It gets real busy as you go from accelerating through the left-hander, to braking and then turning right before Turn 11.

How close do you get to the inside wall? McLaughlin has to figure out the best angle through the Turn 11 hairpin in order to get the earliest throttle application leading onto the long front “straight” of Shoreline Drive.

With the dolphins playing in the background, McLaughlin is hard at work making his way through the tight fountain corner at Long Beach.