Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou is the runaway leader while the Team Penske driver languishes in eighth and 196 points in arrears.

Palou is in a rich vein of form with six wins to his credit from nine races and nearly 100 points clear of his nearest rival.

McLaughlin, meanwhile, just wants that winning feeling again and to start building momentum heading into 2026.

He this weekend returns to Mid-Ohio – a happy hunting ground where he won in 2022.

“I know I’m coming up to some really good tracks,” McLaughlin told Speedcafe.

“I just want to win some races and capitalise on tracks that are going to be good for us, and some ovals coming up as well. Mid-Ohio is a good track for us.

“I just want to win races. I’m not really worried about the points. I’m not worried about anything else.

“I just want to try and make up for some of the races that we’ve lost via strategy and try and make up for that and really try and get some momentum rolling before the end of the year — and then maybe we can roll it into ‘26.”

McLaughlin’s season started strong on the streets of St Petersburg where he took pole position.

However, a first lap caution – caused by his teammate Will Power – shuffled the strategy and ultimately meant McLaughlin wound up fourth.

He suffered a hybrid failure at Thermal, crashed out of the Indianapolis 500 on the warm-up lap, and then suffered a suspension failure at Gateway – all resulting in DNFs.

McLaughlin was penalised at Detroit for rear-ending McLaren’s Nolan Siegel and at Road America was on the wrong side of the strategy game. He finished 12th in both of those races.

“It’s been obviously pretty disappointing,” said McLaughlin.

“I just feel pretty unlucky about a number of things. Obviously, there have been mistakes I’ve made as well, but at the same time I feel like not much has gone our way.

“We’ve had really good pace but not quite enough pace, you know? We’re working through that and trying to get a bit better. I think it’s a collective.

“We’re pretty positive, we’re working hard, it’s just a matter of putting everything together.

“At the end of the day, up until Indy I had a pretty good start to the year, reasonably, for my standards – but one guy won four out of five races.

“That puts it into perspective and you just have to figure out to be better. That’s where we’re still at right now.

“I guess I said disappointed before, but I feel like I’ve been there or thereabouts pace-wise, and it just hasn’t fallen our way.

“It just really hasn’t been many things that have sort of gone our way strategy-wise. Even going back to say, St Pete at start of the year like.

“If that first sort of four or five laps goes green I probably win that race by like 15 seconds. It’s just the strategy that we’re on and the way that everyone had picked the other tyre.

“Ultimately, we made those decisions and that’s how it is.”

McLaughlin isn’t getting down on his luck, however. Even if a title bid might be out of reach, save for extraordinary circumstances, the Kiwi has some optimism.

“I think from an execution perspective, we’ve been really good,” he said.

“I think qualifying speed has been really strong, even compared to my teammates. I feel like most of the time I’ve been out-qualifying my teammates.

“It’s just a matter of putting some races together and we haven’t really done that with a bit of bad luck and a couple of mistakes my way and whatever. It just hasn’t really come together.

“I feel really positive about everything. I’m not really down in the dumps. It’s just sort of one of those ones where it is what it is at this point. You know, you’ve just got to get through it.”

Eight races remain in the IndyCar season. The Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio gets underway on Monday at 3:22am AEST.