Can you be a ‘proper’ top-level IndyCar driver without winning an oval race? Last weekend’s Iowa Speedway IndyCar round produced a unique-to-IndyCar question that takes some effort to answer.
“I was never going to call myself an IndyCar driver until I won on an oval,” McLaughlin said, seconds after jumping out of his race-winning Penske machine.
Later, he was in a press conference with Alex Palou - the two-time series champion currently without an IndyCar oval win - who brought up McLaughlin’s remarks and agreed with him that an oval win is crucial.
But can you have a double champion not considered a 'proper' driver in that series? What about the other names yet to win on ovals? Does McLaughlin feel this way because of his particular racing background? It all raises plenty of questions.
We’ve assessed his claim and the reasons for and against supporting it.
What McLaughlin said after the race
“I always felt like that,” said McLaughlin when asked about his oval wins comments.
“It's correct. I felt like an open-wheel driver, but an IndyCar driver is someone that can win on all three [types of] racetracks.
“Thankfully I'm very proud to say I've won on an oval now, along with a road and street course. Proud moment for me.”
Why Palou and Herta are bad examples
Of the drivers regularly fighting for the championship or race wins every year, Palou and Colton Herta are the two that stand out.
What McLaughlin and Palou said to each other after the second Iowa race
Alex Palou: I cannot call myself an IndyCar driver yet [smiles].
Scott McLaughlin: No, you definitely can [laughs]. Don't worry about that.
AP: No, but I agree with you. I've been saying that, that it's something I need to do. We were close today.
SM: That wasn't a shot at you, by the way. I think you're an IndyCar driver.
AP: I know. I've been saying the same. I'm 50%, right?
SM: You're like 75%. Probably closer. You have a couple of championships.
AP: That's good. We still have four chances [to win an oval] this year, so...
McLaughlin was quick to point out to Palou that he felt he was an IndyCar driver, and highlighted his pair of championships.
But the comments do make it conspicuous that Palou and Herta still don't have oval wins.
Yet they are bad choices to think about here because they are both multiple race and pole position winners who have at least fought for wins on ovals. Herta especially has shown he is good enough on an oval to win and the amount of bad luck he’s had is comical.
Palou has struggled more on the short ovals in the series, but has bagged two championships.
Recent championship winners
This is quite simple. To find an IndyCar champion who did win an oval race in their title year you have to go back to Scott Dixon in 2020. But then you have to go back to 2016 to find a year where the champion didn’t win on an oval. It appears cyclical.
Perhaps a lot of that is linked to the number of ovals on the calendar. That’s been low in recent years but this year, seven races of the 17 on the calendar are held on an oval.
Number of oval races per year since 2016
7 races - 2024 (two double-headers)
6 races - 2020 (four tracks, two double-headers during covid), 2018, 2017
5 races - 2023, 2022, 2019, 2016
4 races - 2021
“In the IndyCar Series, there's no way to get around the fact that you do have to be a good oval driver, particularly in seasons like we have this year, where there's a lot of points being tallied in oval races,” JR Hildebrand said on this week’s episode of The Race IndyCar Podcast.
We’ll certainly revisit this discussion at the end of the year because Palou leads the championship right now but four of the last six races will be on an oval.
What it says about McLaughlin
McLaughlin is an unusual driver to analyse in this area, because when he came to IndyCar he had no relevant singe-seater experience at all.
A driver coming from Europe can establish themselves in IndyCar, like Palou has, using a lot of the same skills built up in other open-wheel series.
But McLaughlin didn’t come from a single-seater background. He has to perfect every aspect of IndyCar racing in order to not be ’Australian Supercars legend Scott McLaughlin’.
A big part of why this meant so much to him is that he still feels the pain of being passed on the last corner of the last lap of the Texas oval race in 2022 by his Penske team-mate Josef Newgarden.
He got his first oval pole at Gateway in 2023 and the Indianapolis 500 pole earlier this year, and both of those have come with an incredible work ethic to perfect his craft, particularly in 2024 working with Simon Pagenaud - who is still recovering from a crash at Mid-Ohio over a year ago.
That hard work has certainly paid off.
What this win meant for McLaughlin certainly wasn’t a big deal for his team-mate Will Power, who appeared on this week’s The Race IndyCar Podcast.
“It didn't even really occur to me that he hadn't won an oval,” he said.
That’s a big compliment and a sign of how highly McLaughlin was rated before and is rated now.
Why teams and team-mates are so important
If we zoom out and take a more holistic approach to McLaughlin’s first win on an oval versus those who don’t have an oval, the team aspect is telling.
Some people will say that McLaughlin perhaps should have won an oval race sooner given his Penske team has won nine of the 15 oval races in IndyCar since McLaughlin went full-time.
But he has had to go up against Newgarden and Power - both experienced oval aces - in the same machinery.
In that same period while Palou has been at Ganassi, his team has three oval wins, and Herta’s Andretti team had none. The strike rate is much lower for oval wins outside Team Penske at the moment, and that should be factored in.
The Race's criteria for calling yourself an IndyCar driver
Any one of the following
- An IndyCar championship
- An Indy 500 win
- An oval win
- An impressive oval record with teams not running at the front
The Ferrucci comparison
That last point brings us to Santino Ferrucci. I can’t imagine him being classed as anything other than an IndyCar driver now, and he doesn’t have an oval win.
He also hasn’t regularly been in a team that is contending for wins at these places - although he’s changed that himself on occasion - and is clearly one of the best drivers in the field. His record at the Indy 500 - his first six starts all producing top 10s at an event where so many things have to go your way - is spectacular.
He’s another reason why this argument doesn’t apply when it's stood up to other people.
In conclusion, McLaughlin’s comments post-race needn’t be pointed at anyone else because he said he was going to call himself an IndyCar driver after winning on an oval.
That’s not him saying the rest of the field isn’t a credible IndyCar driver without an oval win. It’s just the set of credentials he’s judging himself by, in terms of the journey shedding his old life as a Supercars driver - which he’s extremely proud of, it’s just not his job anymore - and a symptom of being in a team that has dominated ovals.
The opportunity - given how good Penske is - has been there for him since he arrived in IndyCar. You definitely can’t say the same about Herta and Andretti.
Ultimately there are different credentials for calling yourself an IndyCar driver. McLaughlin has put so much weight and importance behind this oval win so it's a very personal milestone victory in McLaughlin's IndyCar journey, rather than a stick that needs to be used to beat any other top-line drivers who have not yet done the same.
