McLaughlin more confident of beating “professor” Palou to IndyCar title

Scott McLaughlin has identified areas he needs to improve upon to beat the “professor” Alex Palou to the IndyCar title – and is now more confident he can do so.

Palou has dominated the American championship in recent years, winning three of the past four titles, while McLaughlin is hunting for a maiden crown having moved across from Australian Supercars.

The 31-year-old’s best championship finishes have come in the past two seasons with third in each, but consistency has been the issue. In 2024, for example, he won three races just like Palou but had five fewer top-five finishes, leaving McLaughlin 39 points off the champion.

“I think ultimately we were as fast, if not faster than him,” said the Kiwi. “It was just about putting together the year that he had.

“As we know, he’s like a professor with half the stuff that he does. He’s very good and very consistent and I have a huge amount of respect for the boy.

“But we’re not overthinking it. I think there’s also plenty of other drivers that are super good. I think [2024 runner-up] Colton Herta had an amazing year.

“It’s just a matter of focusing on ourselves and what we can improve. That’s all we can control and hopefully what we’ve done is enough.”

McLaughlin’s 2024 title challenge was hampered by four very poor results: Long Beach, Detroit, Laguna Seca and Toronto.

In Long Beach, a gearbox problem forced him to retire, he crashed from second in Detroit while collisions with Penske team-mate Will Power in Laguna Seca and Toronto caused low scores there as well – and McLaughlin thinks he cannot have these kinds of races if he is to become champion.

“We all know the right path is just consistent results with a few wins along the way,” said McLaughlin, who also lost his podium at the St Petersburg season-opener for wrongfully using push-to-pass on restarts. “I think you need to win a couple times for sure but consistency is key and we all know that.

“You’ve got to eliminate those big bad results and we had a few of them last year, which really hurt. We can all learn from that and get better.”

McLaughlin is still feeling upbeat for 2025, though, especially having now clinched his first victories around an oval track at Iowa and Milwaukee last year.

“From where I started in late 2020 to now, I’m a completely different race driver,” he said.

“I thought I had the ingredients to win last year and I still think I did. I just hadn’t won an oval yet, we were close, but now having won the oval – obviously that’s given me a lot of confidence.

“But I’d be lying to say that I feel any different to last year. I certainly feel like I’m in the same boat, it’s just a matter of circumstances and me putting myself in different positions. Sometimes you’ve just got to have a little bit of lady luck, as well.”