by Everything in Scott McLaughlin’s world is emerging.
The three-time Australian Supercars champion moved to the United States after his last title in 2020, and in four fast-paced NTT IndyCar seasons the New Zealander has become Team Penske’s top performer, taking the organization’s top championship positions in 2023 and again in 2024.
He’s married, recently became a father, welcomed a daughter, and then there’s the latest gift he’s received in the form of an invitation to spend 24 hours with fellow countryman, friend and former Supercars rival Shane in January van Gisbergen in a Corvette at IMSA’s Daytona season opener.
Although known as an IndyCar driver these days, the Kiwi’s greatest achievements in racing – at least so far – have come with a roof over his head, and that’s what the upcoming partnership with Van Gisbergen, young American phenomenon Conor Zilisch and the timeless Ben Keating in a TF Sport Z06 GT3.R Trackhouse, what a special opportunity for McLaughlin.
He’s raced at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in an LMP2 car, but the return to Supercars-style machines in the GTD Pro class is another first for the Indianapolis 500 pole sitter, and he can’t wait to make the most of it making the most of what has been given to him by General Motors, Trackhouse Racing and Tom Ferrier’s TF Sport team.
“I make no secret of the fact that I am proud of our goal to be the best Chevy IndyCar team every year, and to do that two years in a row was very special,” McLaughlin told RACER. “And when Eric Warren presented this opportunity, I was certainly very grateful. And honestly, I’ve never had anything like this presented to me before.
“I am absolutely honored to wear the Chevy badge at Daytona. I consider myself quite fortunate to have a brand that invests not only in me, but also in our team, and in motorsports in general, with the things that GM and Cadillac are doing in Formula 1. I think that’s great. In this day and age, especially where you think people are pushing back, GM is all in and that’s really cool.”
If there is a specific angle to the program for international racing fans, it is the combination of McLaughlin and van Gisbergen – who were routinely portrayed as heated rivals during their battles Down Under – on the same team.
Can the two coexist peacefully in a Corvette? Mclaughlin says don’t believe the hype.
“He’s a little older than me, but I’ve known Shane since I was 15,” he says. “I started at Stone Brothers Racing, and he was the lead driver there, and I was in the Dunlop Series, the V8 development series. We were pretty good friends, and when he was growing up, I was there. And then I moved to Melbourne in 2013 and he went off to do his thing with another team. But I moved to Melbourne to work in Supercars, and that’s when we really started knocking doors for the first time.
“But we were always good at having a beer; We used to hang out at after parties, where I would always go over and just hang out. And when he went to Triple 8 and won his championship, I was still involved with Garry Rogers Motorsport at that time, and then I got the Penske deal. And from then on we were pretty much arch rivals. But the media has made it much worse than it was.
“The TV guys just wanted a rivalry, and that was fine. And there were times where I deliberately took him out, and he also deliberately did a few things. They were things he did to me and I did to him just because we were angry or trying to get into each other’s heads. But that was all part of it, and it was probably more awkward because our teams really hated each other. It wasn’t rude between people, but the powers that be, the Penskes and Tim Cindric and then Triple 8 and Roland Dane, didn’t really get along. We were the Ford team. They were the Holden team and it was always a bit awkward.
“But no matter what happened, over the years we always met up for a beer after the race. So there was always this false narrative that we didn’t like each other, and that wasn’t the case. But at that time I was never able to race with him in the same team in the same car. So this is the first time we’re on the same team together again, which is pretty cool.”
McLaughlin is also excited about the prospect of sharing the car and experience with Keating, a gentleman driver who is one of the best in the world and not a full-time professional, and Zilisch, who was a class winner at the Rolex 24 as a teenager and who are prodigious talent and IMSA’s ladder system, to earn a bigger opportunity at Trackhouse in NASCAR alongside van Gisbergen.
“I would like to race with Ben. I’ve raced against him many times and he’s so great,” he says. “Ben is successful in his own right, business and professional, and he is a champion in sports. And then Conor is a big star in the making. He’s one of the first guys that made me feel old, because I’ve always felt young, I’ve always been the young person, but he’s the first kid that made me think, ‘****, yes, he is quite young.’ I mean, to me, anyone born in the 2000s is young. So we have the whole range of ages and experience with us.”
