Kanaan fires back after McLaughlin weighs into McLaren driver saga

The Frenchman was blindsided by the papaya team’s decision to install Nolan Siegel for the rest of the 2024 IndyCar season (and beyond), having announced the same for him just last month.

Siegel is now the fourth driver signed up to race the #6 Chevrolet this year, with David Malukas’ contract terminated when he was sidelined from the opening four races due to injury, as Pourchaire and Callum Ilott filled in.

Amid fan blowback at the Pourchaire-Siegel decision, McLaughlin took to X (Twitter) to give his take on the latest developments in McLaren’s line-up.

“Let’s take a moment of silence for all the trees sacrificed for McLaren contracts,” he wrote, along with a meme of Dr Evil from the Austin Powers movie franchise.

Let’s take a moment of silence for all the trees sacrificed for McLaren contracts. #INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/6i0FBh6gl2

— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin93) June 18, 2024

Remarkably, even Malukas was a fallback option for McLaren when it and Chip Ganassi Racing ended up in a tug of war over Alex Palou’s services for the second silly season in a row.

Nor are those the only contract dramas which McLaren has become embroiled in during recent years, with its Formula 1 team successfully prising Oscar Piastri from Alpine in 2022.

Piastri replaced compatriot Daniel Ricciardo, whose contract was terminated (with an apparently healthy payout) that year.

In any case, though, Kanaan, who is the Sporting Director of the McLaren IndyCar Team, was not seeing the funny side of the Siegel-Pourchaire episode.

He harked back to McLaughlin’s and Josef Newgarden’s disqualification from this year’s St Petersburg race after the three Team Penske cars were found to have been running with an illegally manipulated push-to-pass system.

“A shame Push to Pass didnt have a moment of silence in St Pete… but we can take one together if you like,” the 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner fired back.

McLaughlin was unperturbed at the ‘beef’ (American slang for conflict, grudge, et cetera), responding with a reference to his #3 entry’s primary sponsor for this weekend’s Laguna Seca race:

“TK, if you’re looking for beef, you won’t find any better than @GoodRanchers,” he quipped.

“I can send ya a box this weekend.”

Even Good Ranchers got in on the act, replying to McLaughlin’s post from its official account simply with, “king.”

Penske’s push-to-pass scandal caused widespread anger in the IndyCar paddock, especially when Newgarden attempted to explain that his Car #2 crew thought that the series’ rules had changed in a manner consistent with the supposedly accidental use to illegal coding.

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown was among those to speak out on the matter, asserting that Team Penske’s excuses did not “stack up.”

The IndyCar season resumes this weekend at Laguna Seca, where Pourchaire had still expected to be racing as at the start of this week.

“Man I can’t believe I’m gonna race on the legendary Laguna Seca this weekend,” he wrote in a since-deleted post on X.

There is no word yet as to when McLaughlin might deliver the box of beef to Kanaan.