Finch, who also hails from New Zealand, has been at Team Penske since 2018.
Well before McLaughlin arrived at the end of 2020, Finch worked alongside Simon Pagenaud and was part of the Indianapolis 500-winning effort in 2019.
That year, Pagenaud swept the ‘Month of May’ – winning the road course curtain raiser before claiming pole position and his sole Indianapolis 500 victory.
Speaking with Speedcafe at this year’s Indianapolis 500, Finch said he has been wowed by McLaughlin’s year-on-year progression and sees championship-winning potential.
“It’s amazing. He came over here and he was very quick right off the bat, but we just couldn’t quite put it together in our first season,” Finch explained.
“We struggled to really execute. It was a little bit of him getting used to not driving a tin top, driving an open-wheel car, and they’re something very different. You could see the progression and his ability to be able to adapt to the new car.
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“Over the years, it’s just time. He’s gotten better and better to where now he’s more in control, he knows what he wants, especially when it comes to superspeedway racing, which is such a finesse track.
“There are so many little things happening all the time and the last two years he’s been really on top of all that, able to be proactive rather than reactive. I think that gives us a pretty good shot at not only winning Indy but winning the championship.”
McLaughlin’s progression has been steady. In his first year, he was 14th. In year two, he scored his first race win in the season opener and went on to finish fourth.
Year three, Finch said McLaughlin should have been champion if not for a few bad results.
“Last year we should have won. We messed up a few races, had a couple of little failures on the car. Nothing of our own doing, but it basically cost us the championship,” said Finch.
“We were essentially one second place finish away from winning the whole thing.
“We’ve had tough competition this year in [Alex] Palou but it’s definitely sooner rather a little later.”
Finch was promoted to his current role off the back of Team Penske sacking three high-profile staff members — Tim Cindric, Ron Ruzewski, and McLaughlin’s former strategist Kyle Moyer.
While the axings created some turbulence, Finch said the established group of him, McLaughlin, strategist Ben Bretzman, and data acquisition Adrian Williams have remained.
As far as what has changed for Finch, it’s mostly a reshuffling of responsibilities.
“It’s still a very similar approach. I mean we’ve been working long enough – me, Ben and Scott together along with our DAG (data acquisition guy) Adrian and so we have quite a close-knit group,” said Finch.
“This my fifth season with Scott and Ben’s fourth, so we’ve shifted rolls a little bit and I’ve taken over some of Ben’s responsibilities and he’s taken some more strategic responsibilities, but essentially as a unit, we still operate the same.
“Scott still gets the same information, but just coming from different sources. I’ll be doing a little bit more of the hands-on race engineering side as well as some performance engineering. So it’s definitely a step up for myself.
“In terms of how we operate as a three-car unit, it’ll be pretty much status quo.”
IndyCar continues at the Milwaukee Mile on Monday, August 25 (AEST).
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