Scott McLaughlin grabbed his first pole position of the season yesterday at Barber Motorsports Park, besting teammate Will Power, who for the second race in succession had to settle for second. Crossing the alternate start/finish line the Kiwi was clearly very happy with the result, cheering loudly on the team radio.
“Yeah, I lost my voice on the way in from the finish line to the pit entry (smiling).
“Look, it obviously means a lot. Really proud for Good Ranchers to come back here with another fast car. Ultimately proud for Team Penske. 1-2, it’s quite tough to come by in any series, let alone INDYCAR.
“Obviously after the week we’ve all had, it’s a nice little reward,” McLaughlin referred to the penalty Team Penske received after illegal use of the push-to-pass system in the season’s opening race in St. Petersburg.
The penalty meant disqualification for McLaughlin and teammate Josef Newgarden, as they both used the push-to-pass illegally, whereas Power “only” received a 10 point deduction in the championship standings, as he only had the push-to-pass illegally available to him.
Championship-wise, this meant he dropped all the way to the back of the table, leaving the former Australian Supercars ace to start a fight-back into contention.
“Look, just take it as it comes. Ultimately we’re always out there to win. Yeah, look, like I said before, it’s been a tough week, but it is what it is. We’ve moved forward.
“We’ll just keep starting our championship I guess comeback we would like to say and do the best we can. The best thing we can do is continue getting poles and hope to get a win, but we know it’s going to be hard.”
After finishing last season with seven front row starts in the last eight races, the first few qualifying sessions of the season didn’t seem to work out for McLaughlin, starting ninth in St. Petersburg and 11th in Long Beach.
“Yeah, the last couple races we just probably haven’t nailed qualifying. Circumstances and mistakes by me, whatnot. We’ve been through to Q2, just missed the Fast Six. It’s nice to nail and get our first Fast Six of the year and put it on pole.
“Ultimately it’s so hard to just continually be up the front in the sport. You’ve got to put everything into it. As Will shows, if you had a little bit of adversity or whatever it is, it’s very hard to keep track, keep focused.
“But we’ve all been working together really well,” McLaughlin continued. “I think we’re really pushing this team forward, along with Team Chevy. It’s nice to turn up to the racetrack knowing you can have a really good shot at a win or a pole every time.”
McLaughlin revealed he doesn’t get too much information from his crew during the session, depending mostly on how the car feels during the lap.
“They [the crew] don’t tell me much. I ask for no lap times. I just go out there and drive basically. I don’t have a predicted lap on the dash like Will or anything. It’s more for me a feel thing, just drive the wheels off it. For me, it’s a process that I go about. It’s an execution.”
He added: “The car today was just phenomenal. Like Will said, we’ve hardly changed it. When you arrive here, you drop it out of the truck, you don’t have to change it that much, you build more confidence, more confidence, more confidence. You just find the limit, know the limit.
“Thankfully the car was really good on that final set of reds. We were able to put her up the front.”
