Scott McLaughlin is grateful for the fans who have followed him across brand divides during his career.
The three-time Supercars champion has returned to Australia this week for the first time since he jetted off to begin his new life as an IndyCar driver in October 2020.
Then, he had just clinched a third straight Supercars drivers’ championship title in a DJR Team Penske Ford, and won the Bathurst 1000 in a Mustang in 2019, but now sports the Chevrolet bowtie on his Team Penske racesuit.
It is also a Chevrolet badge on the road car which he is getting around in this week, namely a Silverado Trail Boss.
However, in Supercars alone, he has driven not only Ford Falcons and Mustangs but also Holden Commodores and even a Volvo S60, and has enjoyed a high level of popularity from fans in each.
“Life moves on and I’ll never forget what Ford did for me and what DJR did for me, and all those guys are very close to my heart,” he told Speedcafe.com.
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“But, I can’t say I’ve been a Ford guy my whole life. At the end of the day, I’ve driven Holdens, Fords, Volvos, and had success in all of them.
“I think a lot of my fans thankfully have supported me from when I was a Ford driver at Stone Brothers, all the way through my Holden years, my Volvo years, and back to Ford and eventually onto Chevy.
“So, a lot of my fans follows me just from a driver perspective, which I’m really grateful for.
“Like I said, I had some amazing years with Ford, but now I am a Chevy driver in the US and thankfully GM Specialty Vehicles helped me out with that car, which is obviously a big deal.
“They were really kind with that and it was nice to keep it in the family because Chevy puts a lot into our racing over there.”
McLaughlin first drove a Supercar competitively for Stone Brothers Racing in the Dunlop Super2 Series before switching to Matt Stone Racing, its satellite team.
He won that title in 2012, the same year he made his Repco Supercars Championship debut as an enduro driver in the Tekno Autosports Commodore and was called up at short notice to drive a Garry Rogers Motorsport Commodore on the final day of the season after Alexandre Premat suffered heat exhaustion.
McLaughlin went full-time in the top flight with GRM in the following season, winning a non-championship race at Albert Park and then doing so for points on home soil at Pukekohe.
After that squad’s change of brands, he would give Volvo its first Australian Touring Car Championship race win in the Supercars era at Wanneroo in 2014, before the high-profile switch to DJRTP in 2017.
The New Zealander scored his first IndyCar pole position and race win in this year’s St Petersburg season-opener in a Chevrolet-powered Team Penske Dallara, and would end up with three of each by the end of the campaign as he claimed fourth in the standings.
Thanks for the wheels @TeamChevy Australia! Nice Silverado Trail Boss for our time in Australia! pic.twitter.com/LkeqAWCXRs
— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin93) October 26, 2022
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