Scott McLaughlin rocked up to Road America this week having spent the weekend before watching the Knicks win the NBA championship at Madison Square Garden. Good week. Then he sat down for the IndyCar media call, gave his 2026 season a B minus, named Detroit as the race that got away, and made the case that the championship is still very much on. This is what he said and what stood out.
Scott McLaughlin Road America 2026 Grade
Someone asked McLaughlin how he’d rate his season so far. He didn’t hedge. B minus. Three top fives, five top 10s, seventh in the championship. He put it all on the table himself without being pushed. Pace that hasn’t turned into results often enough, a new engineering setup that took longer to bed in than he wanted, a winless run stretching past a year. He knows where he stands.
The B minus is actually an honest grade, which is what made it interesting. He said he never passed school on A grades, so a B minus gets him through. What he’s really saying is the speed has been there and the scoreboard hasn’t always caught up with it. He’s not pretending otherwise.
“I’d give myself so far a B minus probably, B. But from the perspective we want to be a little bit better, for sure.”
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske, IndyCar media call, 17 June 2026
Since May he says the relationship with new engineer Raul has started clicking. The team meetings are sharper and he described the current setup as the best environment he’s been part of at Penske. Coming from someone who’s been there a while, that carries a bit of weight.
Detroit
If you want to understand McLaughlin’s 2026, Detroit is the one to look at. He named it straight away when the season question came up, called it the race he’d want back, and moved on. No drama, no blame.
What stood out was how quickly he went to Detroit. He did not list half the season. He picked one race. Fastest in Q2, strong all weekend, contact with Will Power, finished nineteenth. That’s the one he’d want back. A driver rating himself a B minus who can only find one weekend where it genuinely fell apart is quietly telling you the pace has been pretty decent.
“Walk away from there a 19th place. It’s part and parcel of how it works out in IndyCar sometimes. That was the one race I probably want to have back.”
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske, IndyCar media call, 17 June 2026
The winless run came up too, going on two years now. He’s been through dry spells before in his career and his answer is the same as it always has been. Keep working, keep putting yourself in position. He didn’t sound like someone falling apart over it. More like someone who’s done this long enough to know you work through it.
The Engineering Picture
A lot of McLaughlin’s 2026 seems to be about the people around him as much as the results. New race engineer Raul. Tim Cindric on strategy for the first time working directly with him. Dave Faustino alongside. All new at once, in a season where the margins are tiny and getting that chemistry wrong costs you points.
He was straight about it taking longer than expected. St Pete and Phoenix had teething problems. Long Beach was when things started working. Cindric has adapted to how McLaughlin wants information on the radio, Raul has been good to work with, and the whole thing is moving in the right direction. He said it’s the biggest adjustment since crossing from Supercars to IndyCar, which given how hard that transition was, says something.
“I’d be lying if I said it’s been taking longer than I thought it would. Lucky, I haven’t had much change besides moving from Supercars to INDYCARs. This is probably the biggest change I’ve had since that period.”
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske, IndyCar media call, 17 June 2026
Test days coming up in the second half are ones he flagged as significant. Same chassis as everyone else in the field, so settled time on track with the right people around him is where you find the gaps.
The Championship
Palou leads. The gap is real and McLaughlin didn’t try to spin that. But with nine events left on the 2026 IndyCar calendar, new circuits nobody has data on, and a Milwaukee double-header that can move the championship standings hard in one weekend, writing anyone off right now is daft. Palou ran out of fuel at Gateway. These things happen.
Washington DC is a wildcard for the whole field. Nobody’s been there, no reference laps, no tyre data. McLaughlin called it wide open and it’s hard to argue with that.
“You’d be silly if you were writing off the championship right now. I think it would be the battle of who doesn’t make the most mistakes.”
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske, IndyCar media call, 17 June 2026
Road America
He’s led this race three years running and hasn’t won it. Yellows have fallen wrong, strategy windows haven’t gone his way. He said it plainly with no frustration in it, just the facts of three weekends that didn’t close out. This one is the XPEL Grand Prix with the title sponsor on the car, and he turned up in Wisconsin saying he intends to win it.
The long lap changes how you think about strategy here. Warm-up lap tyre prep matters more than most circuits, the overcut can be a real weapon, and yellow timing can completely flip the order. Rain is in the forecast all weekend, which McLaughlin greeted with a shrug. He’s from New Zealand. He’s driven there in the wet. Same for everyone.
The call closed with a question about Game 4. He and his wife were at the Garden, watched the Knicks come back from halftime down, OG tipped it in at the buzzer, highlights on until 3am. He bought way too much merch.
Good week. Now onto the IndyCar race at Road America.
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