By: Ashley McCubbin

After completing the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season ranked third in the standings, Scott McLaughlin will hope to capture a championship in his fourth year of competition.

“Obviously this is a big year for me,” he told NEWS FROM THE PITS. “I have a lot of confidence from the last couple of years, feel really strong. I’ve got a great team behind me – not in just the whole Team Penske, but at least on the No. 3 car with Benny my engineer, Colin my strategist, and Matt Johnson my crew chief. Not much has changed in the background so really excited to hit the ground running with the team and feel like I’m in a really good spot driving wise and there’s no doubt the sky is the limit for us if we keep working.

“But we know that the IndyCar Series is so hard, so you can’t rest on your loyals. We know it will be tough, but we know we have the capabilities to at least win some races and find ourselves in the championship hunt.”

Last season saw McLaughlin place 10th or worse on four occasions in the first half of the season. However, from the Honda Indy Toronto in July to the finale at Laguna Seca, he was able to score eight consecutive top-10’s with just three of those outside of the top-five. While it may seem as though the performance was stronger on one half than the other, the Australian feels it came down to how aggressive he was. While admitting there were “a couple blips in the radar at the start of the season that really caught ourselves off-guard,” a mindset change in pushing a bit harder at times helped.

As he looks to build off of the last season, he admits they are not going to change too much heading into 2024.

“We know we got fast cars that we go to, we just to make sure that dot our Is and cross our Ts and be in a strong spot – put ourselves in the position we need to, and reconsider where we put ourselves position wise aggressive-wise,” he commented. “Sometimes it may just better to sacrifice a win and take the second or the third. But that was a mindset shift for me, and something I thought about it, but at the same time, we need to make sure that we are aggressive. We have to make sure we’re on top of the game, but I think the way we finished 2023, I think will be a great start to 2024.”

McLaughlin will enter this season as one of the championship favourite, thanks in part to a fourth-place points finish in 2022 before last season’s third. However, he does not feel it adds any pressure in feeling “no one puts more pressures on myself than myself.”

“I’m very excited with what I’ve got and how I’m feeling going into the year,” he said. “The pressure is always there. Driving for Roger Penske as well, you’re expected to win, to win the Indy 500, and to win championships. I know my goals, the team’s goals, and I feel we have the capabilities to achieve all of those. The pressure is there, but I think I put more pressure on myself than anyone can put on me.”