Penske driver Scott McLaughlin's tough month ends with hope for a fresh start at Gateway

San Francisco Chronicle​

18 hours ago

Scott McLaughlin's miserable month of May — he crashed twice at the Indianapolis 500, caused a crash at Detroit and engaged in a post-race social media feud with Tony Kanaan — has finally ended.
Now it's on to Gateway outside of St. Louis and a fresh start for the Team Penske driver as IndyCar prepares for only its second race on an oval this season and first event televised in prime-time by Fox.
'That whole month was pretty tough. It started really well. It ended in a couple bad ways,' McLaughlin acknowledged. 'It was one of, if not the lowest, points of my career. But it's something that I'll learn from. Champions are made learning from their mistakes.'
McLaughlin crashed in practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and it prevented him from taking a car that many believed was a threat to win the pole out to qualify. Hours later, teammates Josef Newgarden and Will Power were found to have illegal modifications on their cars and were disqualified from qualifying.
The ensuing days were chaotic as team owner Roger Penske, who also owns IndyCar, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500, handled the situation internally by firing his top three IndyCar executives. The housecleaning included Tim Cindric, who had spent 25 years with Penske and was the architect of much of the organizations' success.
Newgarden and Power were penalized and dropped to the back of the field for the start of the 500, while McLaughlin got to keep his 10th-place starting position. But come race day, armed with new crew members, McLaughlin was determined to earn his first Indy 500 victory.
Instead, he crashed on the warm-up lap and immediately burst into tears.
The New Zealander hoped to rebound one week later on the streets of Detroit, but contact with Arrow McLaren driver Nolan Siegel caused Siegel to crash. McLaughlin finished 12th, lowest of the Penske trio at Detroit.
He later engaged in a tense social media back-and-forth with McLaren team principal Kanaan, and it ramped up when Kanaan took aim at both McLaughlin's crash at Indy on the warm-up lap and the Penske firings in comments that seemed over-the-line.
'Misjudged last week, misjudged this week, at least you get a weekend off to square that away,' Kanaan wrote. 'I came looking for your team principal to have a chat but I couldn't find him. Oh wait……'
IndyCar was off last week and McLaughlin said he and Kanaan have spoken, but he declined to discuss the details. He later insisted all is well between the two rivals even though it wasn't the first time the two have argued on social media. It's been a recurring theme dating to last season when McLaughlin criticized McLaren's revolving door of drivers.
'Me and T.K. are completely fine. We cleared the air. There was nothing to really clear,' McLaughlin said. "It's like he clapped back, and I clapped back. It's just how it is. I thought it was funny that he posted during the race. I, like, responded. I didn't think he was going to respond the next time, but he did.
'Me and T.K. have always sort of talked on the social media. It's not like a year-long feud. It's just one of those deals where someone's going to call me out, I'll clap back as well. It's just who I am. I'm not going to change.'
Did he take Kanaan's words personally, considering Team Penske had a major overhaul of team personnel at Indianapolis?
'It is what it is. That was his decision,' McLaughlin said.
The upheaval at Penske is ongoing as IndyCar readies for Sunday night's race at Gateway. Penske has had to shift personnel across three teams to cover the vacancies and the three-car lineup will have new engineers and strategists again this weekend.
It makes it difficult to win — all three Penske drivers have yet to make it to victory lane this season — against Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing. Palou has won five of seven races this season, including the Indianapolis 500. Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Global has won the other two.
McLaughlin hasn't given up and believes Palou's run will eventually come to an end. He has two wins on ovals — Iowa and Milwaukee — and a pair of podium finishes at Gateway. McLaughlin finished second there last year.
'I definitely don't think anyone's unstoppable. I think when they're going through a purple patch, they're executing like they are, it's tough,' he said of Palou. "You have to figure out where you can be better and stronger and adapt to that. I enjoy that challenge. He's on a great run. There's no stopping us from learning where we can improve and where we can be better.
'We have some great tracks coming up for us. Just got to keep our heads down, keep focused and learn as much as we can.'
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