Scott McLaughlin Stats: 8 IndyCar Wins and the Fastest Indy 500 Pole Ever Run
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Driver Spotlight - where we pull one driver into the garage, look under the hood at their career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the number 3.
The Short Version
Scott McLaughlin stats tell the story of a driver who already won everything there was to win in one country, then started over in another. He is a three-time Supercars champion from New Zealand who walked away from that to drive the No. 3 Chevrolet for Team Penske in IndyCar. Through the end of the 2026 season he has 8 IndyCar wins, 14 poles, and the fastest qualifying run in the 100-plus year history of the Indianapolis 500. The one thing he does not have yet is a championship, and that is the whole reason he is still here.
He Was Already a Champion Before You Heard of Him
McLaughlin was born June 10, 1993, in Christchurch, New Zealand. Long before American fans knew the name, he was the biggest star in Australian touring cars. In the Supercars Championship he made 253 starts and won 56 races. He won the drivers' title three years in a row, in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
He also won the Bathurst 1000, which is the race that matters most in that part of the world. It took him a while. He kept coming close and kept falling short, and the near-misses became part of his story. On October 13, 2019, he finally got it done with Alexandre Premat as his co-driver.
So picture the position he was in at the end of 2020. Reigning champion. Three straight titles. Bathurst winner. Nothing left to prove. And he left anyway.
The Switch to IndyCar
McLaughlin made his IndyCar debut on October 25, 2020, in the season finale at St. Petersburg, then went full time with Team Penske in 2021. Touring cars and open-wheel cars share a steering wheel and not much else. A Supercar is heavy, it has a roof, and it moves around underneath you. An IndyCar is light, it has no traction control and no power steering, and it punishes you for guessing.
The learning year went about how you would expect. He did not win in 2021, but he did take home IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year honors, and he was also named Rookie of the Year for the Indianapolis 500 after finishing 20th in his first try at the Speedway. That made him the fourth Team Penske driver to be crowned Indy 500 Rookie of the Year, after Mark Donohue, Rick Mears and Helio Castroneves.
Then 2022 happened. He won at St. Petersburg for his first IndyCar victory, then added Mid-Ohio and Portland. Three wins in his second full season. Barber followed in 2023, and 2024 brought three more at Barber, Iowa and Milwaukee. He finished third in the championship in both 2023 and 2024, which remains his career best.
Scott McLaughlin Stats, By the Numbers
Here is the IndyCar career so far, using the official series career statistics through the end of the 2026 season.
The 234 MPH Lap That Rewrote Indy
The single biggest number on McLaughlin's resume did not come on a Sunday. In qualifying for the 2024 Indianapolis 500 he put together a four-lap average of 234.220 mph and took the pole. That is the fastest pole speed in the history of the Indianapolis 500, a race that has been running since 1911.
He finished sixth in that race. Josef Newgarden, his Penske teammate, won it. That is the shape of a lot of McLaughlin's Indy story so far: fast enough to lead the field to green, not yet lucky enough to be there at the end. He has no Indy 500 wins in six tries.
The 36-Race Drought and How It Ended
After that Milwaukee win on September 1, 2024, the wins stopped. He went winless through all of 2025 and finished tenth in the standings, his worst full season. Podiums came, wins did not. The streak reached 36 races, which is two full years of showing up fast and leaving with nothing.
It ended on the last day of the 2026 season. At the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on September 6, McLaughlin qualified on pole with a lap of 1 minute, 9.1363 seconds, beating Alex Palou by 0.0177 of a second. That pole was also Chevrolet's 250th in IndyCar competition.
The race was not close. He led 87 of the 95 laps and beat Kyle Kirkwood by 1.3739 seconds. It was the eighth win of his IndyCar career and, for the first time, one his daughter Lucy was old enough to see.
"My little girl hasn't seen me win yet, and now she has," McLaughlin said afterward. "So, Dad's coming home with a trophy, baby."
Scott McLaughlin wins the Grand Prix of Monterey! pic.twitter.com/fj1bwhH78G
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) September 6, 2026
The win moved him to sixth in the final 2026 standings. Over 18 starts he took 3 poles, 7 top-five finishes, 12 top tens and led 189 laps. Palou had already wrapped up his fifth series title the weekend before at Milwaukee.
The Bottom Line
Scott McLaughlin is 33 years old with three championships on his shelf and none of them from the series he actually cares about winning now. He has the speed, he has one of the strongest teams in the paddock, and he has the fastest qualifying lap anyone has ever run at Indianapolis. What he does not have is the Astor Cup or the Borg-Warner Trophy. A dominant win in the season finale is a decent way to start arguing that 2027 is the year.
Shop IndyCar Gear
McLaughlin still has not put his face on the Borg-Warner, but the Indianapolis 500 gear in the Happy Hour Racing store is in stock right now:
- Checkered Flag Sports 109th Indianapolis 500 Car Logo Tee
- IndyCar 2025 Checkered Flag Sublimated T-Shirt
- Checkered Flag Sports Indianapolis 500 Snake Pit Tee
- Checkered Flag Sports Indianapolis 500 Race Logo Long Sleeve Tee
- Colton Herta No. 26 Gainbridge Andretti 1:18 Die-Cast
More IndyCar reading: our spotlight on Rick Mears, the last Penske driver to make the Speedway look easy, and the full IndyCar schedule and standings.
