In 2025, the Team Penske driver went winless in a year headlined by his crash on the warm-up lap of the Indianapolis 500.
It was in stark contrast to 2024, where he was three times a race winner, stood on the podium eight times, and claimed five pole positions.
McLaughlin wasn’t the only one to suffer, though, with his teammates also enduring lacklustre seasons.
Josef Newgarden finished outside the top 10 in the points for the first time since 2015, while Will Power just scraped into the top 10.
Team Penske looked like it would go winless in IndyCar for the first time since 1999. Thankfully, Power broke the drought with three races remaining in the 2025 season.
For McLaughlin, the forthcoming season – his sixth as a full-timer – is about reversing his fortunes.
“I guess you could say it’s a bit of redemption in some ways. It was a terrible year on my part last year. I felt like we left a lot on the table,” McLaughlin explained.
“Then obviously Indy is the first one that comes to mind, but there were a lot of things that I sort of did last year.
“Looking back at Nashville, dropped that race from the lead. Detroit, I hit Nolan (Siegel), we were in a good spot.
“There are things I’ve got to tidy up, team has got to tidy up, but I think we’ve had a really good off-season, and honestly, the morale on the team is so high and so excited right now.
“There’s so much want to be back to where we want to be consistently, and I think there’s a refreshed sort of focus which has been really cool to be a part of and see.
“I’m really, really excited and just ready to go.”
Last year, McLaughlin’s season started strong. He only finished outside the top six once in the first five races, and that was through no fault of his own when his car overheated.
His Indianapolis 500 horror show began a downward spiral. Across the next eight races, he only cracked the top five once and was outside the top 20 on four occasions.
There was a late upward surge, thankfully. A top 10 at Laguna Seca was followed up with seventh at Portland before back-to-back third place finishes at Milwaukee and Nashville.
McLaughlin said that strong finish has him confident he can continue that momentum into 2026.
“I think what is different was already happening last year. All the pieces were put in place last year, and we found our mojo towards the end of the year,” he said.
“Personally, I need to be better for sure. Gateway we were probably on for a podium; Toronto we were probably on the right strategy, be it that one we were on the same strategy that Pato (O’Ward) was on and our wheel fell off. That was a mistake by us.
“I thought we had genuine pace, but it just wasn’t enough. I thought my start to the year last year was strong, but there’s one guy that won five races in a row, and we somehow needed to combat against that, and that’s ultimately up to us to just execute.
“For me, I’m just focused on executing and seeing what will happen.”
IndyCar begins its season on the streets of St Petersburg on February 27-March 1.
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