Application delivers results for McLaughlin

SCOTT McLaughlin sailed past a half-century of Supercars race victories en-route to a clean sweep of last weekend’s Darwin event.

It is a remarkable achievement in such a short space of time and leaves the Kiwi with an impressive championship margin heading into the back half of the season, whatever that may look like.

In a field of equals, McLaughlin and his team, in particular the #17 side of the DJR Team Penske Garage, are more equal than anyone else.

As if it wasn’t clear before, this is one of those moments, like periods of domination from Skaife, Ambrose and Whincup across the last two decades, where you just have to sit back and admire what is being achieved.

Several instances also showcased why this is happening.

McLaughlin’s rapport with guru engineer Ludo Lacroix is part of it and their continual desire to improve and push the limits harder is clearly part of the reason.

That’s not to say no one else in the field is at either of their level, but for whatever reason the combination clicks, the car is good and they have that rare ability to dominate an enormously competitive field.

It’s the stuff you don’t see that also adds to the level at which they are operating.

We had Supercars legend and resident pit lane expert Mark Larkham on our Podcast this week and he told us that he stumbled on one of the reasons he believes the Car 17 combination are doing so well.

“It’s Application,” Larkham said.

“I leave Darwin the other night – and this is taking nothing away from the other drivers because some of them I might not have seen – but an hour, an hour and a half after the event most of them, as you would be, were in the thongs packing up cleaned up, going or gone.

“As I walk out, last tent, right up the back behind the Shell V-Power truck, were two blokes sitting away from the sight of anyone: Scott McLaughlin and Ludo, still in a debrief, really close, one on one debrief about their weekend. Says it all.”

Despite dominating recently, the 17 team continue to push as hard as if they were further back in the pack and trying to reach the front, rather than the absolute benchmarks.

Another example occurred just a few hours later, when McLaughlin – despite saying on Twitter he would shout the bar at whatever Darwin watering hole he ended up in – woke up at 3:30am on Monday morning to watch the Indianapolis 500.

He was wired into his Team Penske teammates and followed along with the engineer he would have worked with this season had his planned IndyCar debut not been stymied by Covid-19.

Once again, it’s application; a willingness to go above and beyond to learn, improve and soak everything in.

It may not mean he instantly becomes a better IndyCar driver because of it, in the same way that long chats with Ludo may not assure DJRTP of victory in Townsville this weekend, but you can bet it helps.

And what’s more, you can bet that one Roger S Penske, watching on from Indianapolis, noted the commitment and filed that away in his impressive memory banks for when Scotty inevitably arrives over there in 2021.

McLaughlin’s remarkable application to his craft and the link he has forged with his team often goes unnoticed amidst the media coverage of his domination of a sport that remains relentlessly competitive.

Yet all the items have conspired to ensure that he has a notable edge over the field; one that includes a proven winner in the sister car in the Shell Garage.

Last year there were (rightful) questions over the Mustang’s advantage and even the way car 17 managed to win the Bathurst 1000, both during the race and after it.

But while 2020 has been disrupted so badly by the pandemic and everything around it, one constant has been the fact that domination has continued and looks no sign of stopping.

The only difference is that this year the field is perhaps as level as it’s been in years, what with new aero, new shocks and a compressed calendar with limited practice and mixed tyre conditions.

All that application, and the remarkable relationship that driver, team and car down at the very end of pit lane have, ensure that Scott McLaughlin is well on the way to title number three.

And well deserved it would be.

Working full time in the motorsport industry since 2004, Richard has established himself within the group of Australia’s core motorsport broadcasters, covering the support card at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix for Channel 10, the Bathurst 12 Hour for Channel 7 and RadioLeMans plus Porsche Carrera Cup & Touring Car Masters for FOX Sports’ Supercars coverage. Works a PR bloke for several teams and categories, is an amateur motorsport photographer and owns five cars, most of them Holdens, of varying vintage and state of disrepair.

http://www.theracetorque.com/

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